"We decided to seek support for this project and chose Activeo, whose approach focused on the customer and employee experience appealed to us," explains Marge Vandendries, Project Manager at CMAR The CMAR – Chambre des Métiers et de l’Artisanat Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur – accompanied by Activeo, launches its ” 1er Accueil ” project and obtains the second place in the final ranking of the “Palme Expérience Citoyen” delivered by the AFRC – Association Française de la Relation Client.
This ” 1er Accueil ” project consists in the creation of a contact centre for (future) craftsmen in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
The aim was to make an essential change in order to place the reception of the public at the heart of customer relations by creating a contact centre that would meet the challenges and doctrines in this area, which would reshuffle the cards in terms of approach, culture and flows for the entire organisation. To carry out this project, CMAR was supported by Activeo and its teams.
CMAR PACA, acronym of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Chamber of Trades and Crafts, has a range of services that meet the current and future needs of local businesses, to improve their performance and profitability, expand their sales markets (national and international), and contribute to the economic development of the sector. CMAR has 13 agencies in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, nearly 1,000 employees and 6,000 apprentices spread over the 7 campuses of the Regional University.
Birth of the « 1er Accueil » project
“The Chamber of Trades and Crafts of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region (CMAR PACA) offers services that are close to the needs of businesses. The craftsmen who use our services are very pleased with them. But what about all those who don’t know us, who don’t know them yet, or know them too little? asks Pierre Bonnet-Bruna, Director and Rapporteur of the Economic and Territorial Development Commission. “With the disappearance of most of our regalian missions by 2023, and following the Covid crisis which has accelerated the importance of the quality of the remote customer experience, it has become urgent to take care of the several hundred creators and nationals who contact us daily.”
A project called ” 1er Accueil ” was launched in the spring of 2021 with the aim of placing the customer reception at the centre of the approach to the various audiences.
“We decided to seek support for this project and chose Activeo, whose approach focused on the customer and employee experience won us over. Defining a new organisation based on the orientations and feelings of customers defined as proximity and efficiency, relying on reference systems and a market benchmark, then producing the channel matrix, all without underestimating the cultural change: a participative and inspiring project!” explains Marge Vandendries, Project Manager at CMAR.
A multidisciplinary interdepartmental working group brought together employees of all levels and statuses to design a reception service that is in line with needs and practices, while maximising support for an approach that is not always considered natural in public services.
In the first phase, the main aim is to bring front-line reception up to the current requirements of ‘consumers’. Incoming flows are analysed: telephone, electronic (email requests, web, social networks, etc.) and physical. A pilot is planned for December with a team of about ten people located at the Saint-Laurent-du-Var site in the Alpes-Maritimes.
In a second phase (2023), the project aims at organising outgoing flows to orchestrate campaigns (e-mails and telephone) within the framework of a uniform relational programme in support of CMAR PACA’s commercial approach. A pilot is planned for early 2023.
The global deployment, based on the first feedback, is planned for the first half of 2023 on two sites.
“This very challenging project offers us the opportunity to discover a new profession. This is also the reason why we decided to be supported by Activeo. Starting from an organisation structured by departments that sometimes function differently and are geographically dispersed, we first had to obtain and understand figures that were meaningful and consistent. We are currently in the process of harmonising practices in order to be able to operate with a regionalised team for which the quality of response and treatment will be paramount,” continues Marge Vandendries.
The new organisation should enable CMAR to build customer and prospect loyalty, to acquire new ones, but also to improve customer knowledge and satisfaction. “We have really designed our project with a global approach, impacting all the teams of the Chamber. “
The initiative
During the first containment, the CMAR was faced with the closure of services and the obligation to accompany distraught business leaders. A virtual contact centre to deal with the numerous requests was then set up as a matter of urgency. This accelerated the reflection on the permanent creation of a service dealing with the hundreds of requests arriving daily, with efficiency, proximity, humanity and simplicity as key words.
Responding to basic concerns (picking up the phone, answering quickly… and well) but also personalising the processing of each request to offer the most appropriate response possible, with a first-line resolution rate of around 75 to 80%, is at the heart of the challenges. Processes are reviewed to advise customers as closely as possible to their personal situation, thanks to a link with a Customer Relationship Management tool. The vision of what public service should be is extended: not only to provide the customer with the advice or service he or she wants, but also to take advantage of it to show him or her the range of expert services for the development of his or her business. In doing so, CMAR strengthens its ambition to contribute to the development of the regional craft economy.
Originality
The originality of the initiative probably lies in the desire to exploit the latest doctrines in customer relations, often thought of as sales techniques, and to adapt them to public service missions.
To obtain a good mix of the two, CMAR mobilises staff from all services, levels and departments in order to bring together needs and practices observed with methods that make it possible to optimise advice and develop a more commercial approach, centred on the reasons for contact with customers. This leads to questioning the reasons why customers call and what type of response to give them, opening up the field of treatment to more advanced support for the company. Tracing contacts in order to be able to get to know nationals better, so as to be able to advise them better at the appropriate times, is also planned.
The teams of the future CMAR contact centre will be made up partly of employees of the Chamber who are familiar with the economic and regulatory environment of the craft industry and partly of employees recruited for their expertise in customer relations. “We hope to achieve a good alchemy between content and form. A training programme will bring together this different knowledge about our business of advising companies, the necessary attitude towards our contacts, and the tools available to them (CRM, solution, National Trades Directory, website, etc.),” concludes Marge Vandendries.
Perspectives
The pilot launched in the autumn in two departments (Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-Maritimes) will make it possible to measure the real flows with a professional contact centre and to validate the choices of organisation, tools, training and management. Then the constitution of teams dedicated to outgoing campaigns will be envisaged with the desire to multiply the number of companies reached by the implementation of a coherent relational programme.
Eventually, a certification could be envisaged to underline the progress made and the work of the teams, and to place CMAR in a logic of excellence.
An initiative rewarded by the AFRC
During the presentation of its application for the Citizen Experience Award at the annual event organised by the French Association of Customer Relations, CMAR presented “1er accueil”, its project consisting of the creation of a contact centre for (future) craftsmen in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur.
In view of the quality of the file and this application, the juries were keen to congratulate them and were pleased to award them second place in the final ranking of the Citizen Experience Award. The awards ceremony was held on Monday 3 October at the Théâtre de Paris; it recognises the most innovative organisations in terms of customer strategy.
