Armatis, Ryanair's Polish asset
Throwing money out the window isn't, by far, Michael O'Leary favourite's game. For ten years, the omnichannel, multilingual customer service of Europe's largest airline has been provided by a French BPO specialist. Independent and not listed on the stock exchange (CAC 40 or Nasdaq).
Visit to 4 Customer Square, near the Seine in Paris
After thirty years in Boulogne-Billancourt, Armatis decided to move its headquarters to Paris, next to the Maison de la Radio, at 4bis rue des Pâtures. The name given to the building is displayed on the door leading to the premises: 4 Customer Square. Is it possible to exist and grow in the shadow of the major global players in BPO, where the atmosphere is not particularly cheerful at the moment and stock market prices are anaemic? A number of men and women are convinced that it is and are joining the company, many of them cycling to the spacious, pleasantly renovated premises. This decision perfectly embodies Armatis' new positioning in a profession undergoing rapid change, says Strategy Director Martin Dufourcq. The world of customer relations is undergoing profound change, particularly with the advent of new technologies, especially AI. This is generating multiple expectations, sometimes even fantasies, on the part of customers in terms of innovation, but also, more fundamentally, in terms of a change of model.
Delivering service and customer experience with new models
According to David Gillaux:
"There are many changes in models: brands' expectations are not only about tools, but also about new production models incorporating AI, new economic models, more integrated technological devices, and concrete actions in terms of integration and inclusion — not just pretty slides. For a company like Armatis, effectively meeting these expectations involves two major transformations: in corporate culture and in the organisation of work, which our new site embodies perfectly."
The sun reflects off the windows of the cafeteria, a strategic location in any company, and everyone can see at a glance whether their colleagues are in the office, ‘in order to break down silos, develop information symmetry and promote collaboration’. The presence of a vegetable garden on the roof and an ‘organic’ rooftop also encourage collaboration outside the workplace.
Even if changing a corporate culture requires a little more than a declaration of intent from its CEO, the energy and smiles are there, and the dynamic is palpable in the corridors of ‘4 Customer Square’. The new visual identity is displayed on the walls, and the coming months will tell us whether boldness – one of Armatis' new values, intended to ‘catalyse collective intelligence to deliver innovative ideas’ – will enable the company to gain a competitive edge over its rivals.
Contact centre platforms, where everything happens and begins
Martin Dufourcq: ‘Innovation begins where things happen: on the platforms.’
Martin Dufourcq (who has worked for some of the most prestigious companies, including Eurogroup, Webhelp and Velvet Consulting) is a recognised expert in customer journeys. He is responsible for capitalising on the quality of Armatis' production in order to offer innovative solutions, making technology a pillar of our transformation. Both in terms of our offering and our production model.
‘We have a strong conviction: the effectiveness of technological solutions depends directly on how well they are rooted in operational realities and the needs identified in the field.’
To accelerate and simplify (and perhaps even be bold?), Armatis has decided to consolidate all its technological expertise within a new company: Armatis Technology, whose mission is to support internal and external production teams by designing solutions based on feedback from the field, with the aim of delivering concrete performance improvements.
The talents of internal teams and subsidiaries (Digital Services Department, Armatis Business Consulting, IT Developers), a newly created AI lab in Poland, and leading technology partners form the core of Armatis Technology. This will not be a new start-up in the sector, but rather an accelerator for operational transformation.
It will be based on a methodology of collecting feedback from the field, followed by a ‘make’ (development of technological solutions adapted to operational needs) or ‘buy’ (integration of the best tools on the market) analysis.
The aim is to offer these solutions, which have been tested in real-world environments, to both Armatis' current customers and internal centres or other market operators.
Armatis Technology
According to David Gillaux, CEO of Armatis:
‘The customer relations and business processes sector remains largely internalised, at around 75%. Many internal centres, often small in size, want access to technologies validated by major BPO players such as Armatis.’
Armatis Technology is therefore launching its software suite called SquAire (with a capital A).
This suite consists of:
— An omnichannel platform for managing and orchestrating interactions, in order to unify exchanges;
— A quality monitoring and insight management solution based on artificial intelligence, to optimise service quality and analyse customer feedback;
— A knowledge management and e-coaching platform, facilitating skills development and information organisation;
— Automation and deflection tools, enabling certain processes to be automated;
— A translation and automatic writing assistance solution, designed to handle multilingual back-office flows without language constraints in recruitment.
Ryanair, Poland and 4 million interactions
Why did Europe's largest airline choose Armatis to help it transform its customer experience? "Every summer, nearly 20% of European air traffic is concentrated in July and August. This seasonality puts significant pressure on customer service operations, particularly when it comes to managing a high volume of requests in multiple languages and across various channels. For airlines, the ability to quickly mobilise multilingual, digital and human resources is strategic." Since 2015, Armatis has been working with Ryanair — Europe's leading airline in terms of passenger numbers — from its multilingual hub based in Poland. Each year, nearly 4 million customer contacts are handled in seven languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish) by a team of 500 to 1,000 agents spread across several sites and using different channels (voice, email, chat).
These requirements in terms of interaction quality and model flexibility could only be met (in addition to the talent of the production teams) thanks to two technological building blocks developed in-house at Armatis:
— harmonised, multilingual quality and compliance controls
In this multilingual context, the automation of quality control and compliance for written and oral interactions quickly became necessary to ensure consistent service quality. Armatis therefore developed a quality monitoring tool enabling written transcription as well as quality control and compliance in all languages managed for Ryanair.
— A high level of flexibility across seven different languages
The processing of written interactions led to the development of an automatic translation tool, enabling advisers to manage written exchanges (translating incoming requests into the adviser's language and responses into the customer's language) simultaneously in several languages. This solution has increased the agility and flexibility of the teams, who can now handle all languages across all required time slots.
Deployed to more than 2,000 Armatis Group advisers, Martin Dufourcq says that ‘these two technological solutions are now integrated into the Armatis Group's offering, helping to strengthen its multilingual positioning, which accounts for more than 20% of the Group's turnover’.
Another major player in the travel and tourism industry is collaborating with the company founded over thirty years ago by Denis Akriche: eSky, which acquired Thomas Cook. Its client portfolio includes Orange, Carrefour, Engie, and Monoprix.
