Konecta, all growth? Make BPO and call-centers great again

Technological disruption is going to take time. And conversational agents are not about to send call centre agents and telemarketers packing, especially Konecta's 120,000 employees. Nourdine Bihmane, the Managing Director of Konecta, the world's 5th largest call centre operator, formerly known as Comdata and B2S in France, made a strong statement in his first speech. And he's right, at least as far as he's concerned.  

Like a certain Donald T, Nourdine Bihmane and his French team, led by the highly experienced Marcos Gallego (ex-Teleperformance, Majorel, Armatis) have decided not to give in to the prevailing gloom that the numerous studies on the impact of generative AI are persistently inoculating into general management. And to accelerate. Aiming for 2.5 billion and recruiting 6,500 employees. In an interview with Les Echos yesterday and in a press release, the company - one of the two service providers for Orange, for example (which outsources part of its commercial front and back office) - detailed its roadmap and put the church back in the middle of the village. It's about time!

The report presented by the former CEO of Atos, who joined the company a year ago, is pragmatic and also contains an element of hope for his teams and the market. In the modern economy, and even more so in the BPO sector where talent is scarce and expensive, this dimension is important. 

‘Technological disruption will take time’ True
Klarna and his less-than-rigorous study from almost two years ago, combined with all the reports from BCG, McKinsey, etc., are ignoring economic and sociological realities: change is not happening at the pace that these same consultancies or Salesforce or Sia Partners and others are understandably interested in. It takes place at the pace of companies and ‘real’ people. In Montluçon or Sarcelles, an Orange customer waiting for their fibre to be installed or for their parcel to be delivered by an ordinary mail order company still has the reflex to call their operator's hotline or pick-up point. In some cases (Ikea, for example), they are even likely to get irritated. Delivery of kitchen furniture scheduled three times and never delivered, a frequent mishap at the Swedish company. But this irritant is not inevitable: at Orange and Bouygues Telecom, the customer experience departments, now fully fledged, have been working for years to tackle two well-known pain points (friction points): waiting time and the lack of autonomy of the agent who is going to deal with the request. The result? For some brands, the customer journey is smooth and seamless, despite its complexity. Jean-Luc Le Gall and Alain Angerame's teams have worked hard. For others, what is offered in the catalogue is frustration and automatic responses by email, supposedly personalised: Airbnb this summer, when the giant changed its processes for displaying its superhosts, causing some members to suffer serious losses in turnover.

In the middle of August, for example, the author of this article was well served:

I didn't have to wait more than 12 seconds to get through to Orange's sales department, to be properly informed about fibre installation, any more than I had to wait for the same installation. The first call lasted between 12 and 14 minutes and ended with a subscription. The sales representative on duty that day was an Orange employee, and he was remarkable.

After the technician had been there, I received a call that same day, at 6pm. It was from a teleconsultant who wanted to make sure that the installation had gone well. She was employed by Konecta in Morocco.

The same installation, the same customer journey, ten years ago, would have been very different.

This overall customer journey involved more than twenty interactions, half of which were telephone conversations. More than 6 text messages were sent and received. Next year, RCSs, which are more expensive but more effective, will take over. So, to complete the roll-out of fibre, for example, we'll continue to need efficient telephone salespeople and motivated subcontractors. Sometimes the same people can't find their way home.

The above example, which could be extrapolated to the world of energy, from making an appointment for a hairdressing session to the fast-growing world of worries about delivery problems (the famous Wismo), shows that telephone calls have not disappeared. They still account for more than 54% of global interactions received in contact centres. However, this low point is increasingly made up of high-stakes conversations. And AI, despite what some people may think, is still not nearly as good, fast or personalised as a seasoned agent fully trained in a product or process.

Nourdine Bihmane 1/ Conversational AI: 0

‘The big lie of generative artificial intelligence is to make people believe that all you have to do to make it work is use it’

Will conversational or personal agents replace everything?

For the past three years, many mutual insurance companies have been using callbots to handle calls about receiving their green health insurance card. At the end of the year, these calls are very frequent, with a lot at stake for the worried policyholder. But the need for a company to have them handled by an account manager is less. The most innovative companies in France, for example, have used Zaion or deployed Uh-Live (Allo-Media) to good effect. Recently, in Geneva, the well-known magazine Le Temps also equipped itself with such a system. It did so with its French customer relations provider, Floween.

Generative AI has changed everything, and these callbots work even better when they are well programmed, designed and trained. At 4.20 in the morning, they respond and can eventually handle an unlimited load. This type of tool can and should be used from now on. 

The question underlying this change is therefore threefold:  

Who will the general management or the customer experience department of the media company or telecoms operator want to talk to, or will have the reflex to do so? Floween is an independent French mid-market service provider, Zaion is a technology company that has raised funds and is accountable to its backers, but there's also Salesforce, which is currently flooding Parisian magazines and billboards with its Agentforce/ Pandora campaign. Or Sia Partners. Matthieu Courtecuisse, CEO of Sia Partners, recently spoke about conversational agents. In addition to these three types of service provider, all legitimately ambitious and often competent, there are the consulting divisions of Concentrix, Teleperformance and Foundever. The choice is not an easy one.

Is this simple and inexpensive to deploy? Ten times no. Interconnecting a speech analytics and conversation analysis tool such as Callity's, a highly sought-after French publisher, with Odigo, the operator of a large ETI, required two months of interaction between the technical departments, due to a Malthusian policy of selecting service providers within the participation of the former Cap Gemini subsidiary. In another ETI, which shall remain nameless, the deployment of Salesforce has not been completed, more than a year after the planned date. And the final cost of the project, after integrating the cost of the integrator, has almost doubled the initial budget.

Where are the expert teams capable of deploying these multi-faceted projects, ideally quickly? Consultants from E/Y, Fabernovel (now E/Y) or other ESNs have not always worn out their trousers on a telesales platform or in a relay point. As a result, they are not necessarily familiar with the subtleties of the supply chain, WFM (work force management), the On Premise version of Vocalcom or the functional coverage of Genesys' competitors. However, this knowledge of the business and the subtleties of KYC are essential if transformation projects are to be brought to a successful conclusion.

Konecta sees an opportunity in this situation. And he is right.

Nourdine Bihmane 1/ Yakafokon: 0

2.5 billion turnover. 6,500 employees to be recruited 
What Nourdine Bihmane announced yesterday was that Konecta had every intention of helping its current and future customers through this transformation. With a wealth of experts in Morocco, South America (the group is the 2nd largest employer in Colombia), Amiens, Carmaux, Gennevilliers and Madagascar, the world's number 5 call-centre operator has proven expertise in its business and sectors. In France, it has relied since 2008 on its specialised and recognised Colorado Conseil entity, which has carried out more than 200 assignments in these areas: Louis Vuitton, Kering, Nespresso and Veepee have all called on the services of the former Colorado l'école du télémarketing, now a subsidiary of Konecta.

The context of digital transformation is promising, call centres are not going to disappear as quickly as has been announced, and we know how to take on board the best of breed technology. That, in a nutshell, is the main thrust of the first major speech given by the former CEO of Atos, who made a name for himself there when he headed up the outsourcing business. The figures quoted are significant, reflecting both confidence and vision: the group plans to increase its workforce by 5%, and boost its turnover in digital transformation consulting from €120 million to €360 million by 2028, to reach a hoped-for turnover of €2.5 billion.

Nourdine Bihmane 1/ Ambient gloom in the BPO sector: 0

Accenture, Konecta, Outsourcia, OnePoint, E/Y
Konecta has a turnover of around €2 billion and operates on several continents, including South America. It employs 130,000 people worldwide. The group aims to generate €360 million from its digital transformation activities by 2028. In Italy and France, where it acquired Comdata, it has helped major telecoms and healthcare groups to digitise their customer journeys, by integrating RPA tools from the market or in-house.

In this market, it is up against BPO players such as Concentrix, Teleperformance and Foundever, as well as agile players in the use of technological tools, such as Intelcia Tersea, OceanCall and Outsourcia, perhaps one of the best equipped and with serious financial backing (from SPE Capital). On the left wing, Accenture, OnePoint and many other contenders want a piece of the pie. The digital transformation and customer experience of companies and institutions is underway, and it is a complex and necessary process if we are to win the loyalty of increasingly expensive customers. Yesterday, we understood that the Spanish group wanted to hold its ground, that the coach was motivated.

Konecta (Nourdine, Didier Manzari, Catherine Pomares...) / Variétés Club de France de la transformation digitale et du CRM.

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NB: the process for reserving tickets for Notre Dame de Paris was set up by Sybille Bellamy-Brown.