Inside the VIP unit at Club Med Call Center in Saint Ouen. Genius telemarketers

The importance of the colour of swimwear in the latest Eres collection. ‘At the CMCAE* in Saint Ouen, a few telemarketers understood the evocative power of the word swimming pool and the importance of being well informed about the latest Eres collection, the famous swimwear’. This is one of the anecdotes told in the following podcast by Manuel Jacquinet, founder of the 1st telemarketing school in France, set up in 1996 in Annecy. But he recalls another, even more unusual one, linked to the mission he carried out in La Rochelle, at Ivoo: ‘The call centre car park can play a big role in recruitment performance, in reality the type of cars you see there’.

The 9th podcast in the series Les télévendeurs de génie, with hipto, Manuel Jacquinet is probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the world of BPO, call-centres and telesales in the French-speaking world.

Founder of the 1st school dedicated to call centre and telesales professions, Colorado, l'école du Télémarketing, which later became Colorado Conseil, in 1996, he and his team have recruited and trained thousands of sedentary salespeople on telephone platforms in Calais, Caen, Yaoundé, Tallin and Tulle.

Club Med, Pages Jaunes, Transcom, B2S, Bouygues Telecom, Coca-Cola Vending and numerous call-centres have all called on this specialist, who is passionate about Soncas methods, Aida, the power of the voice and the virtues of active listening. At the same time, he worked with Jean-Louis Borloo, then Minister of Labour and Social Cohesion, to devise a development plan for the customer relations sector in France. We had a lot of fun,’ he says. ’He understood everything in just two meetings. 

In the podcast that follows, he recounts a few anecdotes that have left their mark on him, some encounters with genius telemarketers. Do they have anything in common, a unique voice, the ability to write more powerful scripts? And he recalls the HBO series Telemarketers, probably ‘the best sociological documentary on certain telephone platforms in the years 1990-2005, where you could meet ex-convicts, chemistry PhDs and entertainers. What they had in common was talent and a sense of resourcefulness. I have a certain nostalgia for these poets of argument, these lovers of the right tone. For them, a sales pitch that resulted in a good sale was like the masterpiece of a Tour de France companion’.

Convinced even that these heroes deserved a film, he co-wrote and produced a slightly madcap comedy about the world of call-centres: Opération 118318, sévices clients. 

The history, future and virtues of cold calling
Colorado's teams have trained more than 12,000 telemarketers and telephone advisers throughout the French-speaking world, including the top guns at B2S, Webhelp in Caen, Satel, Transcom and a number of fundraising specialists, a very special profession.

What's next? 
Organising the 12th Customer Experience Forum, which kicks off in La Baule on 23/09. 
And the release of a book he spent the end of the summer working on: ‘Ne quittez pas, un correspondant cherche à vous joindre, histoire, avenir et vertus du démarchage téléphonique’. Manifone, the telecoms operator specialising in customer relations, is a partner in the official launch and publication of the book, which is due out in October. The book comes at just the right time, given that the reachability of prospects means that all telephone acquisition processes need to be reviewed. 

*For around ten years, Club Med operated a pan-European call centre with several hundred workstations, where Italian, Dutch, Swedish, English and French telephone advisers sold trips and holidays. It was located in Saint-Ouen, in the heart of Paris. A VIP unit dealt with calls and requests from major customers who were loyal to the Club, some of whom spent more than 60 or 100 ke a year on their holidays. These customers were and are entitled to privileged treatment of their requests, and their calls bypass the others a little in the IVR, hi, hi.

Club Med has since reviewed its omnichannel strategy, closed the CMCAE and now handles incoming calls through a virtual call-centre, made up of the various agencies located in France.

Didier Weiss and a number of other key figures in the business worked there.

*CMCAE: Club Med Centre Appels Européen