Redesigning the Call Center Knowledge Backbone for 13,000 CSRs.

About the Client

Company G was one of the largest telecommunications companies in North America. By the mid-2000s, it was expanding well beyond its core wireline and wireless businesses, preparing to launch its fiber-optic broadband service and to bundle satellite television before building out its own video offering. That expansion placed new demands on the customer service infrastructure supporting more than 13,000 CSRs across Company G’s North American call center operations.

Industry Context

The mid-2000s telecommunications industry was in the midst of rapid service diversification, as major carriers expanded beyond voice into broadband, video, and bundled “triple play” offerings to compete with cable operators entering their core markets. That diversification created real operational complexity for large call center workforces, who needed fast, accurate access to a rapidly expanding, increasingly technical body of product knowledge just as customer inquiries were becoming more varied. It was a common pattern across large customer service operations of the era: systems built for a narrower product set, even when only a few years old, fell behind the pace of software and information-architecture innovation and struggled to keep up once a company’s product portfolio expanded.

Current Situation

Company G’s management was concerned that its current system was inadequate to support the introduction and growth of its new products and services, and the executives wanted to quickly understand the overall scope and cost of improving the CSR content repository and portal. Iknow, working with Accenture as the engagement’s system integrator, was asked to design a new, comprehensive call center solution. Iknow was selected because of the depth of its knowledge management capabilities and its significant experience with call and contact centers.

• A new portal that was already technologically obsolete. Although only five years old, the CSR portal’s underlying software and information architecture had already fallen behind the pace of technology change.
• Inaccurate, hard-to-find, and fragmented content. Internal studies found that significant portions of CSR-facing content were inaccurate, difficult to find, and spread across multiple databases and repositories.
• Rising staffing costs to compensate for a weak system. These content problems were making CSRs’ jobs more difficult and driving the need for many new hires just to handle increasing inbound call volume.
• New product lines straining an already inadequate system. Company G’s expansion into broadband and satellite TV threatened to overwhelm a system that was never built to support them.

• Conduct a comprehensive assessment of Company G’s call center operations, organizational capabilities, and technical infrastructure.
• Develop detailed recommendations across content architecture, technical and application architecture, business processes and governance, change management, and phased implementation.
• Build a supporting business case and content migration recommendations.
• Develop a working software prototype demonstrating new knowledge and content management concepts to senior management.

How Iknow Structured the Work

Iknow structured the engagement around a comprehensive operational and technical assessment, followed by several independent analytical workstreams that were synthesized into a unified set of solution recommendations and validated through a working software prototype. This reflects Iknow’s knowledge base and intranet design methodology for grounding new content architecture in both real requirements and a tangible proof of concept.

Key Activities & Decisions

• Operational and technical assessment. Iknow conducted a comprehensive assessment of Company G’s call center operations, organizational capabilities, and technical infrastructure.
• Workstream synthesis. Iknow completed several independent analytical workstreams and synthesized the findings into overall solution recommendations.
• Five-area solution recommendations. Iknow developed recommendations across five areas: content architecture; technical and application architecture; business processes and governance; the approach for change management; and a three-year phased implementation plan.
• Business case and migration planning. Iknow developed a supporting business case and recommendations for content migration.
• KM and CM concept introduction. Iknow introduced and recommended leading knowledge management and content management concepts and approaches into the call center environment.
• Software prototype development. Iknow developed a call center software prototype, using content drawn from the existing portal, to demonstrate techniques such as e-learning, novel search strategies, improved information organization, and online polling to senior management.

Stakeholders & Collaboration

Iknow served as a subcontractor to Company D, the engagement’s prime contractor and system integrator, working directly with the executives responsible for Company G’s customer service operations to design the new call center solution.

Diagnosing Why a Relatively New Portal Was Already Obsolete

With the existing portal only five years old, Company G’s executives needed a credible explanation for why it had already fallen behind — and a rigorous basis for justifying a full redesign rather than incremental fixes. Iknow addressed this by conducting a comprehensive assessment spanning call center operations, organizational capabilities, and technical infrastructure, then synthesizing several independent analytical workstreams into a single, evidence-based set of recommendations.

Winning Executive Commitment to a Full System Redesign

Recommendations and a business case alone are often insufficient to convince risk-averse executives to commit to redesigning a system that thousands of employees rely on every day. Iknow addressed this by building a working software prototype from Company G’s own existing content, giving senior management a tangible, credible demonstration of new e-learning, search, and content organization techniques rather than an abstract proposal to evaluate on faith.

Quantitative Outcomes

• Scale of workforce addressed: More than 13,000 customer service representatives supported by the system under assessment.
• Solution recommendations delivered: Recommendations delivered across five areas: content architecture, technical and application architecture, business processes and governance, change management, and a three-year phased implementation plan.
• Business case delivered: A supporting business case and content migration recommendations delivered alongside the technical solution.
• Prototype delivered: A working software prototype built and demonstrated directly to senior management.
• Engagement duration: Four-month assignment.

Qualitative Outcomes

Iknow’s detailed recommendations, an attractive business case, and a credible software prototype convinced Company G’s executives that a new, comprehensive system could be quickly designed and built to leverage leading knowledge management and content management practices while meeting both executive stakeholder and call center workforce requirements. Company G moved forward with implementation, evidence that the engagement produced a genuine decision to invest rather than a report that sat on a shelf — and laid the foundation for the broader modernization of customer service knowledge access across Company G’s call center workforce.

Timeline to Impact

Iknow delivered the full assessment, five-area recommendations, business case, and working prototype within the four-month engagement, and Company G’s executives approved moving forward with implementation shortly after the prototype was demonstrated.

Core Skills

• Call and contact center knowledge and content management strategy
• Content architecture design
• Software prototyping and proof of concept development
• Business case development

Methods & Frameworks

• Multi-workstream operational and technical assessment
• Change management approach design
• Phased implementation roadmapping

Technologies & Tools

• Enterprise content management platforms
• E-learning, search, and portal prototyping tools