Islington Contact Centre
The first of several projects undertaken on the Islington Framework. This open, customer-facing reception adopted SMART working, a new ‘tone and style’, and included Childrens Services, requiring careful planning of the layout. It was completed within time and budget over eight weeks, while maintaining minimal disruption to Islington’s front-of-house services.
Strategic and innovative planning of the internal arrangement of the entrance, reception and security desk, allowed continuity of the front of house services during the construction stages and also maintained safe access and egress for several hundred staff working in the five storey offices.
LSI worked creatively with the authority’s Brand Guidelines to produce an interior that promoted Access to the Authority in its broadest terms, resolved the inefficiencies of disparate service provisions and contact locations, and improved the standard of customer experience by reducing the physical and perceived barriers between service users and customer contact staff.
As part of a wider estate re-organisation and consolidation exercise, LSI planned and facilitated a series of consultation events with blind and/or deaf service users, in preparing proposals for the relocation of the Sensory Services Team. This required us to prepare tactile plans and high-contrast visualisations for engaging the visually impaired, and also prepare sketch plans that had an auditory commentary overlaid, highlighting concerns for deaf service users, indicating lines of sight/privacy and avoiding instances of background visual distraction. In consultation with Islington’s SMART working group, LSI developed a series of space planning and refurbishment schemes in direct response to emerging business needs and the Government’s “Working without walls” and “Working beyond walls” best practice guides.