Why CXG: Top Digital Solution and Transformation Operator of the Year

Overview

At the BPESA GBS Alchemy Awards 2026, CXG, part of Digital Solutions Group (DSG), was named Top Digital Solution and Transformation Operator of the Year.

The recognition was for a transformation we led for a national multi-brand retail group: several retail brands and a high-volume parcel service, moved from a traditional voice-first contact centre to a digital, AI-supported model in which automation, data and people each handle the work suited to them. This article explains what changed, and why it matters to any business whose customer volume is growing faster than its headcount.

1. Why Change Was Needed

Two forces made the old model unsustainable:

• Growth. Store networks, online sales and a loyalty base in the millions were all expanding. A voice-only, agent-led model could only keep up by adding cost at the same rate as volume, or by letting service slip.
• Channel shift. Customers no longer wanted to phone to track a parcel or change a delivery. WhatsApp had become the way South African consumers expected to get simple things done.

The goal was not just cost reduction. It was a CX model that could keep pace with double-digit growth without linear headcount growth, while lifting customer satisfaction at the same time.

2. What We Built

Every brand was moved onto one CX platform, QContact, our own unified communications platform, bringing voice, WhatsApp, email and social into one system under one governance and quality standard. On top of it we layered:

• WhatsApp and IVR self-service for high-volume, low-complexity queries such as tracking a parcel, changing a destination or resending an SMS
• Proactive WhatsApp messaging that tells customers their parcel is ready before they need to ask, resolving the query before it becomes a contact
• Agentic AI and real-time sentiment analysis that flag at-risk conversations to a supervisor before they escalate
• AI-assisted translation across all 11 official South African languages, so customers can reach full resolution in their home language
• Automated quality assurance that scores interactions against a fixed set of criteria every month, replacing small manual samples with data-led coverage

3. Fast, Staged Implementation

All brands were migrated onto the shared platform within a month of go-live, each with its own workflows, without a disruption customers would notice. In a market where transformations like this usually take a year or more, speed was part of the result.

Teams were trained before launch on the new platform, on how bots hand over to a person, and on each brand's own products and policies. After launch, new agents joined on a rolling basis with daily coaching from team leaders, and system changes were released as small, testable steps so live operations stayed stable while the platform kept improving.

4. Results You Can Measure

• 70% of customer contact now resolved through WhatsApp and IVR self-service, with WhatsApp deflection peaking at 71.7%
• CSAT of 4.70 out of 5 against a target of 4.0, so automation has lifted the experience rather than costing it
• 250,000 five-star ratings from customers by the end of the first year
• About 97% of calls answered within 30 seconds on voice, the channel kept for the conversations that need a person
• US$15,000 a month saved in service delivery cost through the unified platform
• A stable team of around 80 agents absorbing significant business growth, instead of constant hiring surges

5. Technology and People, Together

Automation was never meant to replace agents. It decides which conversations reach them. Bots take the repetitive queries, so agents spend their time on claims, escalations and customers who are frustrated or dealing with a real problem, where empathy and judgement matter most.

Empathy is coached, not assumed. Quality reviews check that agents reassure the customer, acknowledge frustration and take ownership before moving to resolution, and any gap is coached in the same month it is found. For agents, the job has become more engaging: less repetition, more of the work their training prepared them for, and specific feedback rather than a generic score.

6. Decisions Led by Data

AI and analytics sit inside day-to-day operational decisions, not just customer-facing self-service. Case-category data showed which queries drove the most volume, which led directly to the proactive parcel notifications. Delivery-partner analytics gave a fact base for fixing specific delivery issues with specific partners. And when quality dipped, the data showed exactly why, so it was coached within the same reporting month rather than a quarter later.

The lesson is simple: automation earns trust only when visible evidence sits behind it. Every AI feature we released came with a metric showing whether it was working.

The Bottom Line

Real digital transformation has to hold up against a real, fast-growing business, not just a pilot. CXG scaled customer experience with that growth, held quality steady while cutting cost, and did it across several brands and eleven languages at once. That is why we were named Top Digital Solution and Transformation Operator of the Year. Talk to our team about what a transformation like this could do for your business.