Coraline Meilleur, Customer Service Manager for the Amaury Group, knows customer relations as well as she knows the Amaury Group. Her 20-year career with the publisher of Le Parisien, Aujourd'hui en France and L'Equipe began...in the group's in-house call center. And while telephone subscriber relations have now been outsourced, it was the partnership with Vivetic Group that reconciled them with outsourcing. Whereas the previous supplier, even though based in France, had a service quality ceiling of 76%, Vivetic has been easily achieving a rate of 92% since Madagascar!
What are AM-Diffusion's activities and what is your role?
AM Diffusion, formerly SDVP, is a 100% subsidiary of the Amaury group, which handles the sale and distribution of Le Parisien and Aujourd'hui en France. L'Equipe, France Football and Vélo Magazine represent another division. We do a lot of prospecting. We have 80 salespeople in Paris and the Paris region who go door-to-door, and a team of salespeople who find other sales outlets in newsstands, press houses and other businesses open on Sundays. We also manage all subscriber relations.
What is the ecosystem of partners for managing subscriber relationships?
Vivetic Group handles telephone customer relations with subscribers to Le Parisien and Aujourd'hui en France. Another service provider in France handles inbound calls for subscriptions to L'Equipe, France Football and Vélo magazine. Finally, a partner in Morocco handles telemarketing for Le Parisien and Aujourd'hui en France. These missions have been outsourced since 2000, and Vivetic Group has been working with us since 2011. Previously, we were working with a partner whose quality of service had deteriorated, so we issued a call for tenders, which was won by Vivetic Group. Their professionalism and expertise in the press and media sector convinced us.
What are the different levels of telephone contact?
Level 1 is outsourced to Madagascar, and agents have no possibility of modifying a contract or requesting a refund. If a subscriber has not been delivered and wants a refund, a request is sent internally, and our teams get back to the customer. If the request is complicated, we call the customer directly.
What is the breakdown of calls handled by Vivetic Group?
Their ten or so agents handled around 155,000 calls. The call center opens at 7:30 a.m., with a peak around 9 a.m., a drop-off around midday, and a pick-up around 3 p.m. July is a big month, with around 16,000 calls last year: many subscribers call before they go on vacation to have their subscription forwarded or suspended. Vivetic Group knows how to manage these peaks in activity by combining appropriate sizing, flexibility and responsiveness.
How do you organize your collaboration with Vivetic Group from an operational point of view?
The necessary contact with the service provider. I know that at the end of the contract with our previous provider, no one from our company went to see them, and the relationship deteriorated, there was no longer any trust. You have to be able to remind people about training, explain new things, and above all maintain direct contact. That's why I go to Madagascar to visit the Vivetic Group teams twice a year. The requirement is the same wherever the site is: the operators must know the product, and for me, remote contact isn't the same thing. My operators know me, they know who I am, and they're happy to see me. The first time I went there, in July 2012, I was curious, and I found that despite the country's poverty, which shocked me, you feel safe there. The new contact center inaugurated in 2014 is bright and pleasant. It's a space designed to make advisers feel good.
How would you sum up your collaboration to date?
I'm delighted - the figures are good. In terms of lost calls, there's a huge difference with Call Expert: when the latter was capping at 76% of QS, Vivetic Group reached 92%.
Waiting times have also fallen. Before, when we were doing tests, we ourselves would lose patience - it could take 8 minutes! Since we've been working with Vivetic Group, we've had very few e-mails from customers complaining about the wait: the DMC dropped to 2.50 minutes in 2014, which is in line with our targets.
