2Degrees Contact Centre Replacement

The Business Problem

Balancing improvements to multiple self-service applications with the competing needs of  stakeholder groups is difficult work. Underestimations and over promises are common shortcuts to greenlighting a project. But issues created by this approach across solution design and project timelines (and much more) will only lead to an inevitable and difficult reset.

The Fix

A root and branch re-evaluation of project scope, design, testing approach and timelines was a challenging ask, but gave the business clarity and certainty. It also allowed for stakeholder re-engagement, allowing us to more fully capture the experience of several key domain experts. Although a difficult recommendation to make, resetting the project got us back on track through effective re-planning and true cross-stakeholder engagement.

The Outcome

The project successfully delivered business change across multiple groups – from customers and front-line business users, through systems administrators and IT teams. Additionally, the work to improve applications relieved some of the Contact Centre’s team reliance on IT, allowing them a greater sense of control.

Lessons Learned

  1. In a complex and impactful project like a Contact Centre replacement it is critical that business change is fully evaluated and planned for at the outset. Doing so up front saves on both budget and timeline.
  2. Similarly, it’s essential that all impacted stakeholders are “in the tent” and consulted early. Viewing projects through a particular departmental lens delivers a distorted view of what’s desired or possible. In this case a project reset allowed us to pull the Contact Centre team more closely to the project’s centre, delivering better outcomes for the team and their customers.
  3. Finally, a project reset needs to be clearly communicated to avoid disillusion. We turned the reset to our advantage by revamping our comms plan to bring and keep people on board.

Customer Feedback

“We were struggling to find a PM with the capability, experience and leadership to steady this business critical ship. Luminate came to the party, with a deeply experienced Contact Centre specialist, dealing in facts and with the EQ and business IQ to manage a range of complex vendor relationships on our behalf. There are a lot of PMs and project resource companies in the market, but not many are as capable as Luminate.”

 – Tracy Duthie, Head of Service Development, 2degrees