Nespresso shuts down its french call center, hands it over to Concentrix in Morocco

The Nestlé subsidiary will close its in-house French call center in Lyon and relocate it to Morocco with Concentrix. According to multiple sources, 180 jobs will be eliminated. The coffee and customer experience specialist, repeatedly recognized for...

The global coffee giant, a Nestlé subsidiary, is a recognized specialist in coffee and customer experience — one that burns through its providers at lightning speed, according to former partners.

Nespresso has announced the upcoming elimination of 17,000 jobs worldwide, including the 178 jobs at its in-house Lyon customer relations center. The company is restarting a partnership with the world's second-largest BPO player, Concentrix, in Morocco — reportedly in two call centers located in Meknes and Rabat, and on AI agent-related projects.

Another portion of customer service would soon be handled from Ukraine, within a shared services center called NBS, as well as from other Concentrix customer service centers, notably in Manchester.

The Nespresso group, a Nestlé subsidiary, told its employees it would shut down its Lyon customer relations center, partly led by Ms. Vanpeene, who oversees the CRCs. French customers will now have their requests handled by Moroccan call center agents.

To justify the decision, management cites the need to "gain in simplicity, efficiency, and consistency with the brand's global organization," while also planning to consolidate its Paris-based teams into a single location and reorganize its marketing division, according to a French daily newspaper.

Webhelp, now Concentrix, chosen once more after being "dropped"

Committed to delivering optimal service quality, Nespresso has always supplemented its in-house call center with one or more external providers for support. The brand is known in the industry for being extremely demanding on every aspect of the customer experience, particularly adherence to scripted messaging, which it wants aligned with its marketing promise of being premium. But it reportedly pays its providers rather poorly and changes them frequently. Frédéric Jousset, co-founder of Webhelp (now Concentrix) and now retired from the industry, had voiced his frustration, struggling to understand the chronic disloyalty of a partner for whom the CEO and his team had always gone out of their way. The brand has often won awards recognizing quality customer relations.

Another French provider, despite being heavily involved, also lost its contract for repairing Nespresso machines, which it had handled for years: the Cordon Electronics group, which managed the logistics of machine pickup, repair, and providing replacement machines to affected customers.

"Named Customer Service of the Year on numerous occasions, the brand could also be named the most disloyal client," jokes a former senior BPO executive: Nespresso has successively outsourced part of its call center operations to B2S, CCA International (Konecta), Foundever, Webhelp, then Foundever again, and now Concentrix. Armatis rounds out this list of partners for the capsule seller.

To justify this decision and these job cuts worldwide, management cites the need to "gain in simplicity, efficiency, and consistency with the brand's global organization." Another explanation may also be relevant: Nestlé's new CEO since October 2025, Philipp Navratil, has stated his goal of achieving one billion dollars in savings within a year.

The announcement, made on Tuesday, June 9, to the 178 Lyon-based employees, came as a shock — they were informed via video conference. The contrast with the recently signed deal — financially significant — with singer Dua Lipa has raised plenty of questions.

What is NBS?

"Nestlé Business Services (NBS) is at the heart of the Nestlé Group. We provide Supply Chain, Financial, HR, Digital & Social Media, CRM and Consumer Engagement services to enable Nestlé to engage with millions of consumers worldwide. We are a multicultural and diverse team of professionals. We are passionate about digital innovation and driving continuous improvement processes with colleagues across the world.

We are looking for talents who are eager to learn, team player, digitally-savvy, with an entrepreneurial mindset, and who can flourish in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. If this describes you and you are looking to join a business where you can really add value, it is time to consider joining NBS! At Nestlé Business Services (NBS), diversity and inclusion are core values. If you have any special needs, count on us to adapt your position."

In recent marketing materials, Nestlé-Nespresso management highlights its partnership with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, which is said to boost service and customer experience KPIs.

The shared services center trend

Many large corporations rely on shared services centers (SSCs), typically set up in low-labor-cost countries: Accenture, Oracle, HP, Accor (in its time), HP, Otis. Accenture even advises its clients on setting up such centers, which can be cost-effective or operate 24/7. Cultural proximity with end customers — whether internal or external — isn't always guaranteed. A former Oracle executive recalls: "Whenever there was an issue with my paycheck, I'd contact, as instructed, the HR department, which was successively based in Bulgaria, then the Czech Republic, then India, I think. Usually, I gave up pretty quickly — we just couldn't understand each other."

AI and chatbots also enter the picture — and so does Dua Lipa

This overhaul of the omnichannel customer relations setup will also make significant room for conversational agents, likely through solutions deployed by Concentrix. Elena Staehli, who oversees these projects in Switzerland, confirmed this in December 2025. In Manchester, Concentrix is hiring for Nespresso, as well as for "rewarding careers" in Sydney. Claude can sum all this up quite simply: to build loyalty and drive repeat purchases, bring in technology, marketing, and celebrities. And don't forget to pay them: Dua Lipa is currently pursuing Samsung. The Korean giant used Dua's image without her consent, and she's seeking $15 million in damages.

Who still has call centers?

In less than twenty years, nearly all call centers run by major B2C brands in France have shut down: Canal+, Whirlpool, Club Med, Accor, Edenred, Peugeot, Nissan, Orange, SFR... France's leading digital bank, Boursorama, manages 9 million customers with a very small team of human agents. EDF has kept its customer relations centers, with a hybrid setup of in-house and outsourced operations. In Le Havre, the area's top employer is the Majorel center, now part of TP, known as Ceacom.

Canal+ created its first customer relations centers in 1984 and shut nearly all of them down by 2016. But Maxime Saada's teams now rely on numerous outsourced customer relations partners in Africa. TP was once placed on a blacklist by Canal+, due to an incident involving a... President of the Republic.

Protecting customer and patient data, analyzing conversation content, and rapidly deploying effective conversational AI agents — without being locked into major CRM and CCaaS vendors — are the new challenges of customer acquisition and retention. These challenges have already enabled the rise of French champions such as Brevo, Callity, hipto, and Volubile.ai, among others.

When contacted, Nespresso's France management did not respond directly to our questions. Its PR agency stated that staff at the 53 stores in France, as well as the sales teams, are not affected by this workforce reduction plan.

The En-Contact editorial team

Cover photo, photomontage based on an original photo of Moroccan telemarketers © En-Contact