Bardey to Barça. Affinicia establishes a new call centre in Barcelona

Prospects are harder to reach, not to say that people no longer answer their phones. The telemarketing industry and its valiant representatives are looking for a new lease of life, regrouping and coming together, as they did recently at Gitex Africa.

But Africa is full of resources. They know how to repair old Toyotas and Peugeots, they appreciate cuisine and robots. They handle refund requests, which are numerous when parcels are lost. And they also have to police the industry when unscrupulous or forgetful entrepreneurs use stratagems to settle the past. In Barcelona, call centres are older than AirBnB.

Signed by Barça. £30 million
He's not at the end of his career, he's very good. He chose Barcelona. Florian Bardey, CEO of Affinicia, has set up telemarketing companies all over the place, including quite a few in Africa. He has just set up one of his centres in Barcelona, ‘because we are targeting the Spanish market and the city remains a logical hub,’ says the CEO. Barcelona, Malaga, Lisbon, Manila... where are the contact centres now located and are they thriving?

He has his own call centres. And he puts them to work.
Almost thirty years after starting out in the business (Evelyne Bardey, his mother, was and continues to be a renowned production manager), Florian Bardey still spends his time in airports and aeroplanes, searching, like a diamond hunter, for the right call, the agile, pragmatic and rigorous service provider. Demanding clients such as Virginie Fromaget, VP Business Support at TotalEnergies, and Michael Sitbon, a leading insurance broker, take two things very seriously: the volume of sales to be secured each month and the quality of those sales. Combining the two by the thousands means always being on the ball, discovering new destinations where commercial talent may be hiding. Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar... you have to travel often, far from the Trocadéro, where you might sometimes bump into the CEO at an early morning meeting. ‘I'm hustling,’ he smiles. ‘Prospects aren't picking up the phone anymore. The future is inbound calls. And team planning, WFM, to be available at the right time.’

On track for €35 million in turnover
Last year, Affinicia generated tens of millions of euros in turnover, a slight increase compared to 2023. ENI, SFR, TotalEnergies, insurance brokers and soon, perhaps, a major seller of dog and cat food: such is the daily life of this busy, multi-tasking entrepreneur. ‘The future lies in incoming calls, the quality of discovery during sales meetings and technology.’

Like him, customer service and remote sales specialists continue to set up shop in Spain, particularly in Barcelona. Clément Thorre (see his photo on the cover of issue 90) recently joined Sqwad, an SME that employs independent office-based sales representatives. He previously managed CCA International's large contact centre there (now Konecta).
In Malaga, Konecta and Foundever have multilingual sites, some of which have been created recently, as has ADM Value, which remains loyal to Barcelona.

Recently, H&M's call centres in Barcelona experienced strikes following staff reductions. This is business as usual in a sector where staffing levels are constantly being adjusted. Following the loss of its contract with Meta, Telus also made massive cuts to its team of moderators (trust and safety). 

Avis, the pioneer
The Olympic Games and the quality of life in the Catalan capital have done much to raise the profile and attractiveness of the city, where salaries and rents have risen, meaning that it is no longer a low-cost destination, far from it. Car rental company Avis has been operating there for over 25 years.

Cork, Dublin
But a rigorous historian of the history of contact centres will point out that it was in fact in Ireland, in Cork and Dublin, that the first large inbound telesales centres were set up. Dell, Gateway, PC manufacturers and assemblers were attracted by the tax exemptions granted by the government. That was thirty years ago. They have now left.