First Quartz

Clarity in complex change: validated discovery, structured delivery.

Structure under pressure.

An independent advisory practice working with senior leaders in the middle of large, complicated change, connecting customer and employee experience to the operating model that has to deliver it.

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Scattered shapes and tangled paths converge through a series of lenses and resolve into a single structured trajectory toward a defined target.

The practice

Portrait of Ian Stokol, founder of First Quartz.
Ian Stokol Founder, First Quartz

Most large transformations don't fail for want of effort, or because the technology wasn't good enough. They fail because nobody brought clarity to the mess. Nobody said plainly where the organisation actually is, where it's really trying to go, and what good would look like for the customer, the employee and the business at once.

That's the work. I take on a small number of engagements at a time, working directly with the people accountable for the outcome. Evidence over opinion. Design connected to how the organisation really runs, rather than floating above it. And a plan that survives contact with reality, because a strategy nobody can build is just a nicely formatted opinion.

A great deal of the discovery and delivery is now AI-accelerated, which means a small, senior effort produces what once took a much larger team. I still do the thinking. The tools do the typing.

Evidence

Anyone can describe themselves well. This is what other people have said.

CX Impact Award: Outstanding Practitioner, 2019

Awarded by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), recognising practitioner impact across the global CX profession.

“His use of measurement throughout his application was exemplary. He monitored and determined progress throughout a three-year journey and used it as a guide to what to do next.”
Michelle Morris, CCXP · Design Consultant, Verizon · Impact Award judge

Profile in Contact Center Pipeline

“He brought calm during uncertainty, structure during chaos, and momentum when we needed it most.”
Eewei Chen · Design leader, DesignOps & design experimentation for large enterprises
“He creates alignment across product, technology, operations and business teams, ensuring that customer needs remain at the centre while delivering commercially viable solutions. His ability to simplify complex processes and translate insights into practical, scalable experiences made a significant impact.”
Irfan Shehzad · Delivery Manager; President, PMI Melbourne Chapter
“One of the most skilled and knowledgeable CX practitioners I've had the pleasure of working with. Ian has been pivotal in shifting the thinking in the institution. His pragmatic approach to solving problems, and ability to see both the big picture and the detail, are a unique combination in my experience.”
Matt Porter · AI leadership, adoption & transformation · Monash University
“One of the few CX professionals who understands customer psyche and is not afraid of putting it at the forefront of every problem he is asked to solve. I have always come away having learnt something new myself, whilst the project is delivered.”
Yash Desai · Head of Ecommerce, Bowens · Officeworks

Selected work

Officeworks

Back-to-School programme

A three-year, eight-project omni-channel programme spanning e-commerce, marketing, in-store, call centre, supply chain and point of sale, in a retail market under sustained disruption.

Engaged more than 15,000 customers; app engagement increased 250%; automation of customer-facing financial touchpoints returned significant resources to the business.
Programme won the CXPA Impact Award for its results.
City of Stonnington

CX strategy and capability

Built customer experience strategy and internal capability to support a new operating model and service vision for residents, ratepayers and visitors.

Delivered the Council mobile app, a 360-degree customer view for the service centre, and the Councillor Portal.
Councillor Portal recognised with a RAVE 2021 award.
Monash University

Establishing the CX function

Established the university's customer experience function and strategy within Strategic Marketing and Communications, spanning pre-enrolment through campus life to alumni.

Improved personalisation across multiple journeys and introduced new mapping frameworks (HeX, Connected Content Mapping) still used to reason about the ecosystem.

How I work

Outside in

Three sets of needs, usually pulling against each other. Customer, employee, business. Solve for one at the expense of the other two and all you have done is move the problem somewhere less visible.

Evidence over opinion

Most of the costly work I have seen was done well. It was just aimed at the wrong problem. I would rather find that out before you waste time and money.

Connected to how it runs

A design that ignores how the place actually works is a nice picture. I am interested in the version that survives Monday morning.

You get me

Start to finish. There is no team waiting behind the curtain to take over once the proposal is signed.

Contact

If you need more hands, I am not your man. If you need someone to work out what is actually going on, let's talk.

ian.stokol [at] firstquartz.com.au

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