SERVICE DESIGN • UX RESEARCH
Beyond Metrics: Rotterdam's Helpline
Municipality of Rotterdam • 2021
The Problem
- — Rotterdam's 14010 municipal helpline handles 1.5 million calls annually. The entry selection menu (IVR) was a major bottleneck: it made callers wait 1:35 before reaching a human.
- — Even worse, the menu was organized by internal departments rather than user needs, resulting in 100,000 wrong connections per year, caller frustration, and stress for the 200+ call agents who had to correct these errors manually.
My Approach
- — I led an end-to-end service design project to overhaul the entry experience.
- — Mapped the emotional experience of all stakeholders: 40 short interviews with callers, 6 long interviews with call agents, followed by co-creation workshops and rapid prototyping.
- — Rather than optimizing for efficiency alone, I identified the clashing needs driving the system's failures—and resolved each tension individually. Three core tensions became three design interventions: moving the privacy statement to the waiting queue, fixing permanent menu options while reserving a slot for temporary topics, and eliminating patronizing website referrals.
What I Delivered
- — Redesigned the 14010 menu, reducing pre-selection time from 1:35 to 50 seconds (47% reduction).
- — Delivered clear design rationale grounded in stakeholder needs—enabling the municipality to make future changes without reintroducing the same friction.
The Impact
7 → 8
caller satisfaction score within 2 months of launch
6.5 → 7.5
satisfaction with perceived waiting time
50% fewer
wrong connections per year — from 100,000 down to 50,000
