Engineering the System Behind Every Customer Interaction: A New Enterprise Content Platform for Call Center Operations.

About the Client

Company G was one of the largest telecommunications companies in North America. Its Call Center Operations Group was responsible for the systems and support behind more than 13,000 CSRs handling customer interactions across Company G’s multi-region, heavily regulated telecommunications operations — a workforce whose ability to quickly find accurate, region-appropriate information directly shaped both customer experience and regulatory compliance.

Industry Context

For a regulated, multi-region telecommunications operator, presenting the right content by region is not a convenience but a necessity for compliance and customer experience, since tariffs, service offerings, and terms can vary meaningfully from one region to the next. At the same time, enterprise content management and search technology were maturing rapidly through the mid-2000s, giving large organizations a genuine alternative to the static, document-repository-style systems that had long been the default for internal knowledge. This opened the door to highly indexed, role- and context-aware content delivery, replacing long-form technical documents that front-line staff had never been able to use efficiently.

Current Situation

On a prior consulting assignment at Company G, Iknow had led the design of a new, comprehensive CSR solution. Building on that foundation, Company G wanted Iknow to design and architect the actual new call center technology platform. Iknow, working with the client’s internal IT division and Accenture, designed the multiple components of the new CSR portal and enterprise content management system needed to replace a system that was degrading call center performance and customer satisfaction.

• Fragmented, hard-to-locate content. Content was stored in multiple locations and multiple formats, making it difficult for CSRs to find information quickly.
• No region-aware content presentation. The system could not present information by geographic region, a necessity in the regulated telecommunications industry.
• Content in the wrong format for the job. The majority of content existed only in long, cumbersome technical documents rather than a format suited to real-time CSR-customer interactions.
• Ineffective search driving poor outcomes. Search functionality was ineffective, often retrieving a large number of irrelevant results and compounding the difficulty of finding accurate information.

• Design and architect a new call center technology platform, including a CSR portal and enterprise content management system.
• Capture and document business requirements from end-user and management groups across the organization.
• Validate the design through a parallel rapid prototyping exercise.
• Deliver a detailed implementation plan and lead detailed system design in partnership with the client’s IT division.

How Iknow Structured the Work

Iknow structured the engagement around requirements gathering and parallel rapid prototyping, followed by stakeholder approval and a detailed design phase conducted jointly with the client’s IT division — reflecting Iknow’s knowledge base and intranet design methodology for grounding a new content platform in validated business requirements before committing to detailed technical design.

Key Activities & Decisions

• Requirements-gathering sessions. Iknow conducted a series of requirements-gathering sessions, bringing together various end-user and management groups to capture and document their specific business requirements.
• Requirements analysis and documentation. Iknow analyzed, ranked, and compiled the requirements into a formal business requirements document.
• Rapid prototyping. Iknow ran a parallel rapid prototyping exercise and incorporated the results directly into the system design.
• Implementation planning. Once stakeholders approved the requirements, Iknow created a detailed project implementation plan.
• Detailed design with the client’s IT division. Iknow worked with the client’s IT division during the detailed design phase, drawing on expertise in interface design, content management system architecture and implementation, search engine design and tuning, taxonomy development, and portal technology.
• Commercial ECM platform customization. The resulting system was based on a commercial ECM product, customized to meet Company G’s specific business and technical requirements.

Stakeholders & Collaboration

Iknow served as a subcontractor to Company D, the engagement’s prime contractor and systems integrator, working directly with Company G’s Call Center Operations Group and internal IT division throughout requirements gathering, design, and implementation.

Designing for Region-Specific Accuracy in a Regulated Industry

The prior system’s inability to present content by geographic region was more than an inconvenience in a regulated telecommunications environment, where tariffs and service terms genuinely vary by region — any replacement had to get this right from the ground up. Iknow addressed this by building region-specific needs directly into its requirements-gathering sessions and designing a taxonomy and content architecture built to support role- and region-based presentation as a core capability, not an add-on.

Turning Long-Form Documents Into Usable, Searchable Knowledge

Converting content that had only ever existed in long, cumbersome technical documents into something CSRs could actually use mid-call, while also fixing search functionality that returned largely irrelevant results, required more than a new interface layered on the old content. Iknow addressed this by pairing rapid prototyping with deep search engine design and tuning and taxonomy development expertise, restructuring the content itself into a highly indexed, genuinely searchable repository rather than simply digitizing the old documents.

Quantitative Outcomes

• Scale of workforce served: More than 13,000 CSRs supported by the new platform.
• Platform scope delivered: Multiple components of a new CSR portal and enterprise content management system designed and implemented.
• Content transformation: Content converted from long-form documents into a highly indexed, searchable, web-accessible repository.
• Engagement duration: Six-month assignment.

Qualitative Outcomes

The CSR workforce enthusiastically welcomed the new system, which delivered numerous improvements in content access, presentation, and management, including the ability to deliver accurate content tailored to each CSR’s role and geographic region. Performance improved across all key call-center metrics, including higher customer satisfaction, shorter call-handling times, increased first-call resolution, and reduced overall call-center costs — concrete evidence that the platform not only modernized the CSR experience but also delivered measurable operational and financial value.

Timeline to Impact

Iknow delivered validated requirements, a detailed implementation plan, and the completed platform design within the six-month engagement, with call-center performance improvements following directly as CSRs adopted the new system.

Core Skills

• Enterprise content management system architecture and implementation
• Search engine design and tuning
• Taxonomy development
• Portal and interface design

Methods & Frameworks

• Requirements gathering and rapid prototyping
• Stakeholder-validated business requirements documentation
• Detailed project implementation planning

Technologies & Tools

• Commercial enterprise content management (ECM) platform, customized
• Web-based portal technology and enterprise search and indexing