We reduced operational costs at Telkom by launching self-service tools, streamlining agent workflows, unifying 18 legacy systems, and embedding service design practices across teams.

1.

Project
Overview

1.1

Context

  • Telkom is one of South Africa’s largest telecommunications providers, offering broadband, mobile, and digital services across consumer and enterprise markets.

  • As Product & Service Design Lead (consulting via Freethinking Business Consultants), I was embedded in the Chief Digital Officer’s team to modernise Telkom’s digital support architecture, reduce call centre load, and improve customer experience within an ecosystem built almost entirely by external vendors over the previous three decades.

  • To unify 18 fragmented legacy service interfaces into coherent user journeys, improve agent efficiency through consolidated tooling, and empower customers to self-serve, while embedding design thinking into a heavily outsourced, siloed technical landscape.

1.2

Responsibilities

  • Led a team of 5 Senior Product Designers across key digital initiatives. I provided direction, facilitated critique rituals, and aligned design efforts with business goals in close collaboration with engineering, operations and external vendors.

  • Rebuilt the airtime voucher redemption flow via WhatsApp with image recognition and redesigned IVR (interactive voice response) logic to route calls more effectively based on keypad or voice input.

    We also developed a diagnostic self-service portal, and co-designed a role-based agent interface to consolidate essential support tools.

  • Led service blueprinting and discovery sprints, aligned stakeholders across business and vendor teams, and introduced standard rituals for collaborative decision-making and delivery.

1.3

Collaboration
& Planning

  • Worked across Engineering, Product, Legal, and Operations. Service blueprints helped reveal deep architectural dependencies and build consensus across outsourced development teams and internal stakeholders.

  • Standardised UI design in Sketch and maintained shared Confluence and Miro spaces for journey maps, architectural diagrams, and decision logs. This documentation was essential for navigating Telkom’s complex digital ecosystem.

  • Participated in agile sprint cycles, co-led quarterly roadmap planning, and facilitated alignment across vendor-led implementation teams.

2.

Challenges
& Constraints

2.1

External Challenges

  • Customers struggled to resolve even basic issues online. This pushed call centre volumes higher and increased pressure on operations. Voucher redemption is extremely costly compared to its value for the business.

  • Telkom’s digital systems were built and maintained by dozens of external companies, resulting in 18 disconnected service interfaces. Each had its own data sources, UI conventions, and security model.

  • Experience quality varied significantly between platforms, making it hard for customers or agents to trust or navigate the systems.

2.2

Internal Challenges

  • Agents needed to toggle across spreadsheets, manual workarounds, and siloed databases to piece together case data, which lengthened handling times and increased friction.

  • New initiatives were layered on top of old ones, with no clear deprecation path. This led to redundancy and UX inconsistency.

  • Ownership of key digital services was fragmented. Much of the underlying infrastructure was controlled by external vendors, making it difficult to implement holistic change.

2.3

Constraints

  • All initiatives had to show tangible ROI within months to secure further investment from leadership.

  • All new solutions had to meet POPIA (South Africa’s GDPR-equivalent), support secure authentication, and avoid disruption to long-running vendor contracts.

  • COVID-19 created urgency to reduce in-person support needs and scale digital channels rapidly.

3.

Strategy
& Process

3.1

Strategic Foundations

  • Mapped the end-to-end customer and agent journeys, uncovering systemic inefficiencies and missed automation opportunities. These blueprints became shared alignment tools.

  • Worked with Engineering to co-design a role-based agent portal that provided secure, consolidated access to legacy systems and improved case visibility. This allowed modernisation without full system rewrites.

  • Prioritised digital experiences that reduced call volume by building diagnostic tools, smart forms, and conversational support journeys on WhatsApp.

3.2

Operational Improvements

  • Introduced 2-week discovery sprints to prototype key flows, test feasibility, and align stakeholders before development.

  • Built a shared Confluence hub for design artefacts, service blueprints, and journey maps. This was used across squads for onboarding, alignment, and decision tracking.

  • Created structured feedback and critique rituals. One Designer was promoted to Product Design Lead, validating the team's strength and mentorship culture.

3.3

Product & Brand Evolution

  • Designed reusable components for identity verification, fault diagnostics, and case tracking. These could integrate with different back-ends while maintaining a unified front-end.

  • Extended accessibility beyond compliance by focusing on colour contrast, keyboard navigation, and mobile responsiveness in real-world network conditions.

  • Reframed support journeys as key customer touchpoints to build trust and reflect Telkom’s brand values by embedding them into the broader product and brand experience.

4.

Solution
& Implementation

4.1

Customer Experience (CX) Improvements

  • Introduced image recognition to auto-process high-volume voucher redemptions via WhatsApp. Processing time saw a 70% reduction.

  • Updated routing logic, which allows callers to interact with Telkom’s call centre system through voice and keypad inputs, to reduce dropped calls and misdirected queries.

  • A web portal providing broadband troubleshooting tools, device guides, and real-time fault visibility.

  • Built reusable UI modules for use across web, mobile, and chat channels, ensuring consistency despite technical fragmentation.

4.2

Employee Experience (EX) & Operational Enhancements

  • We built a secure, role-based platform that consolidated 18 legacy tools into a single interface. This reduced system switching and login fatigue which improved resolution speed and accuracy.

  • Service blueprints became a default tool for aligning cross-functional teams and vendor partners.

  • Design became a strategic contributor in roadmap planning and product prioritisation, trusted to drive systemic outcomes.

4.3

Organisational & Cultural Shifts

  • Service blueprints became a go-to tool to align Product, Ops, and Legal on business priorities and system constraints.

  • The design process fostered stronger partnerships with external vendors, who began participating earlier in planning and aligned more closely on delivery.

  • Design evolved from a delivery support function to a strategic partner by engaging early and consistently across squads.

5.

Outcomes
& Impact

5.1

Business Outcomes

Call Deflection

15%

Call volume dropped within six months of launching new self-service tools and flows.

Voucher Redemption Speed

70%

Reduced processing time from 5+ minutes to under 90 seconds by automating a manual high-volume task.

Customer Satisfaction Gains

30%

Piloted support flows saw a 30% increase in CSAT, driven by clearer journeys and fewer call transfers.

5.2

Efficiency Gains

Delivery Velocity

Dev Effort

Modular design components reduced time-to-market for new features and minimised redundant engineering effort.

Strategic Prioritisation

Clarified ROI

Discovery sprints helped avoid misaligned builds, reduced churn, and clarified ROI early in the process.

Agent Onboarding

50%

Onboarding time reduced from 8 to 4 weeks through portal consolidation, better documentation, and intuitive tooling.

5.3

Lasting Impact

  • Blueprinting, journey maps, and discovery rituals continued post-engagement and were adopted by other teams and vendor partners.

  • Tools and platforms created during the project were adopted beyond the initial squads, informing wider vendor rollouts.

  • Design evolved from tactical support to a foundational part of Telkom’s digital strategy. We were trusted to navigate complex systems and deliver measurable business value.

6.

Project
Evidence

  • End-to-end Customer Support Journey Map

    This flow visualised the friction and branching complexity involved in resolving fibre connectivity issues, highlighting interactive voice response (IVR) gaps, agent pain points, and key breakdowns in the handover process.

  • Opportunity Mapping from IVR Flow

    Mapped IVR pathways and routing logic revealed structural disconnects leading to failed handoffs and unresolved customer queries. This informed redesigns and call deflection strategies.

  • Legacy System Login Prompt

    Snapshot of the outdated Telkom terminal interface. This underscores the technology debt affecting internal support workflows and agent efficiency.

  • Calls Saved impact Analysis

    Our call deflection model outlined annual projections toward the R15M target. We focused on use cases like bundle purchases and retention, balancing call savings with user experience.

  • Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Performance Dashboard

    Quantitative analysis of voice vs. digital contact channels. This helped prioritise where IVR improvements and agent interventions had the highest impact.

  • Backlog Planning Roadmap – Year 1

    This delivery plan aligned backlog grooming with phased development and testing sprints. Use cases like ‘recharge’ and ‘fibre fault’ logging were prioritised for early wins.

  • 8-week Design and Build Process

    A collaborative framework combining design sprints and agile development cycles. Used to validate MVPs rapidly and make Go/No-Go decisions based on early user tests.

  • Self-service Usage Insights

    Journey duration analytics for the CLEVA platform revealed high dropout rates in help topics like ‘Contract Renewals’ and ‘Send us an Email’, driving targeted content redesign.

  • Research & Design Skills Matrix

    Mapped skill sets across the team to identify facilitators, support needs, and knowledge gaps ensuring the right people were aligned across discovery, ideation, and delivery.

  • Remote Collaboration Snapshot

    Cross-functional sessions were run remotely across time zones, uniting Telkom stakeholders, external consultants, and delivery teams to make design decisions in real time.

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