City of Stirling's customer service excellence honoured on national stage
The City of Stirling has earned national honours for its customer service at the 2025 Auscontact Excellence Awards.
Auscontact runs the most prestigious awards program in the industry, with state and national winners selected by a panel of industry experts and leaders.
The national winners were announced at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins on Friday night, where the City’s Service Lead Customer Experience Rebecca Embleton-Smith was named Centre Manager of the Year.
Ms Embleton-Smith's recognition follows a period of sustained improvement in the performance of the City’s Customer Experience team – both internally and externally – since she started with the City in 2023.
Her ability to embed a proactive, collaborative and high-performance culture in the team earned her the Leader of the Year Award at the City’s 2024 Stirling Stars awards.
This success continued throughout 2024/25, when the City’s average call waiting time dropped by more than 80 per cent and the Customer Experience team recorded the highest employee engagement score of any team in the organisation.
“Rebecca has been a star since joining the City, building a happy and highly capable team that puts the customer at the centre of everything it does,” City of Stirling Mayor Mark Irwin said.
“Our Customer Experience team receives around 9,000 in-person enquiries every year and almost 200,000 enquires over the phone or online.
“It’s a big responsibility and it’s been fantastic to see the transformation of that team under Rebecca's leadership.”
The only local government to win a national award, the City was also a national finalist in two other categories on Friday night.
Stacey Halicki, the City’s Team Leader Customer Experience, was a finalist in the Coach or Quality Professional category.
The City’s Stronger Together program was a finalist in the Employee Experience Initiative of the Year – Mental Health and Wellbeing category.
