Our client, a large Australian bank, needed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of front-line staff in their interactions with customers. In both call centres and branches, many simple queries and actions took too long and required use of too many systems and screens, which impacted customer satisfaction and staff costs. Staff were highly dissatisfied with the systems and tools available, and internal staff engagement scores were suffering.

Our role was to lead this project from conceptual design through to delivery and rollout. Two of our senior program managers worked on this project (one as project director, one as project manager for rollout), and another consultant was lead BA for the project.

The project was the first in the bank to apply a ‘user-centric design’ approach to a large scale system, ensuring that the screens, processes and system delivered the real needs of staff and customers. From the technology perspective, we created the architecture, design and implementation of the client’s first use of Websphere Portal technology, including the bank’s first deployments of infrastructure and applications on Websphere, plus integration to existing enterprise-wide EAI and mainframe components.

Over the 15 months of our involvement, we:

• Successfully designed, built and launched the new system.
• Achieved targeted cost benefits.
• Achieved a 10% uplift in the satisfaction of customer-facing staff with their systems.
• The system remained at the heart of future staff service enhancements for the next 5 years.