Telephony, CRM & Secure Payments Transformation (PSTN Exit & PCI DSS)
The Situation
Bristol City Council operated a large, high-volume customer contact and telephony environment built on legacy PSTN-based infrastructure and Avaya platforms, tightly coupled with council-wide CRM and back-office finance systems. The national decommissioning of traditional PSTN telephony created a fixed, non-negotiable deadline to exit legacy services.
At the same time, the council processed a significant volume of customer payments across services, creating heightened security, regulatory, and compliance exposure. The combined pressures of the PSTN switch-off, ageing platforms, and payment-handling risk meant the council needed to modernise telephony and contact centre services at pace – while maintaining uninterrupted delivery of critical frontline services
The Task
I was accountable for leading a complex, multi-stream transformation to migrate the council from PSTN-based telephony to digital telephony using Microsoft Teams; modernise contact centre capabilities by moving from Avaya to a WebEx solution incorporating WebChat and AI-enabled IVR; ensure continued, council-wide CRM integration; and move all telephony-based customer payments onto a PCI DSS-compliant model using secure DTMF telephony and Worldpay, fully integrated with back-office finance systems.
The programme needed to deliver regulatory compliance, service continuity, improved customer experience, and be fully supportable in BAU at enterprise scale
The Action / Approach
I structured the work as an integrated transformation programme spanning telephony, contact centre operations, CRM alignment, payments security, change adoption, and service transition. Clear governance, supplier coordination, and phased delivery were established to manage risk and maintain uninterrupted service throughout the transition.
I led the migration from legacy PSTN and Avaya-based telephony to Microsoft Teams digital telephony, redesigning call flows, routing, and IVR to support modern ways of working and improved customer handling. In parallel, I oversaw the transition from Avaya to WebEx contact centre capabilities, introducing WebChat and intelligent IVR to improve accessibility, routing efficiency, and self-service.
Given the CRM was used widely across the organisation, I ensured customer journeys, case handling, and reporting remained aligned end-to-end. CRM integrations were maintained and optimised so services experienced continuity rather than disruption as telephony and contact centre platforms changed.
A critical element of the programme was securing customer payments. I led the move to a fully PCI DSS-compliant payment model using DTMF telephony, removing payment data from agent desktops and core systems. This ensured all payments were handled securely while preserving a smooth customer experience and integrating cleanly with finance systems via Worldpay.
Recognising the scale of behavioural and capability change, I ensured comprehensive enablement of business teams. This included coordinating role-based training for all relevant colleagues, launching clear “how-to” guidance and short explainer videos on the council intranet to provide ongoing reference, and supporting teams to fully adopt the features of the new platforms rather than reverting to legacy practices.
To ensure long-term sustainability, I led service transition into BAU. I worked with internal IT support teams to define support processes, provide full knowledge transfer, and ensure realistic support models were in place. This included clarifying incident, request, and escalation processes so both IT and business teams understood how the new services would be supported day-to-day.
Alongside this, I led a structured change and engagement programme combining executive sponsorship, top-down and bottom-up communications, service-level engagement, targeted training, and practical support to embed new digital ways of working across frontline teams.
The Result
The council successfully exited legacy PSTN-based telephony ahead of national decommissioning deadlines, migrating to Microsoft Teams digital telephony without disruption to frontline services. Contact centre operations were modernised, customer journeys improved, and CRM transitioned from the Avaya solution to WebEx with enhanced functionality, including intelligent IVR and WebChat, seamlessly embedded across services.
All telephony-based customer payments were migrated to a PCI DSS-compliant DTMF solution, significantly reducing security and data-handling risk while maintaining customer trust. Business teams were fully trained and enabled, support teams were equipped to operate the new services in BAU, and the council gained a scalable, resilient, and future-proof customer contact platform aligned to its wider digital and customer transformation strategy.
