Why is Bakari Fofana's phone at risk of overheating? A Senior Vice President of Customer Service must remain attentive.
Bakari Fofana has recently been appointed Senior Vice President Customer Service and Experience of the new Canal+ and MultiChoice entity, which now counts nearly 20 million subscribers across the African continent. In 2019, during a field report in Sub-Saharan Africa, he shared with En-Contact several convictions—and recipes—learned on the ground and probably from his mentors or partners, such as Cyril Fontaine, his predecessor in the role, or Charles-Emmanuel Berc, a pioneer of BPO on the continent.
The list of these partners may expand, or shrink. When large groups change scale, they often reduce their portfolio of partners, and BPO is no exception. Or, more smartly, they leave the final decision to those who built these customer service frameworks and customer journeys, and adapted them to clients and their habits. Bakari will soon discover a new English-speaking call-center partner, little known in the sector’s inner circles: for instance, ISON Xperiences, driven by Indian management. This will certainly disrupt the tightly scheduled days of the “Mr. T” of customer experience—already intense, especially during Ramadan. But it is for a good cause.
To be read in the next issue of En-Contact. To get to know these musketeers better, who faithfully attend the annual French Customer Experience Forum in La Baule, several videos are available here.
Quick interview in 2019.
Is it conceivable or reasonable to export locally the same recipes that have proven successful in France? Should companies rely on local partners? The floor goes to Bakari Fofana, Head of Customer Experience Africa at Canal+ International.
The Mr. T of customer experience in Sub-Saharan Africa is probably Bakari Fofana. Like in The A-Team, this “Barracuda” is responsible for managing, across the continent, the day-to-day remote customer experience of the four million subscribers acquired and retained. (He took over from a major innovator and enthusiast on these topics, Cyril Fontaine.)
En-Contact: Are there practices and golden rules to follow to win over a customer or subscriber from Bamako to Kinshasa?
Bakari Fofana: Yes: product, proximity, and innovation. Product is Canal+’s DNA: a premium bouquet of channels with recognized production expertise, thematic channels, and adaptation to local markets. Compared with the programs received and offered in Africa twenty years ago, the major difference in 2019 is that content is now partly produced in Africa and tailored to subscribers’ expectations. One example is the pan-African A+ channel and the 100% African series channel published by Canal+.
A dense physical distribution network, with stores in every city and region, is essential. In 25 countries, the Canal+ Stores and points of sale are where the first customer act—the subscription—takes place. When you add a network of eight contact centers (one per major country covered), you understand that proximity is not just a concept. I have just finalized the latest call for tenders to select these partners: in Gabon (Vocalcentre), Côte d’Ivoire (Sitel), Cameroon and Congo (PCCI), Madagascar (Comdata). The last three, newcomers, are in Senegal and Mali (Call Me) and in the DRC (Congo Call Center).
Selecting one partner per major area is driven by the desire to speak the main vernacular languages (Wolof, Lingala, Bambara, Hausa, etc.) and to gain efficiency and telecom cost savings. We selected these three new partners for their efficiency and their internal and external CSR policies, which we consider essential.
Innovation, in no particular order, includes the launch of an HD decoder and the deployment of myCANAL (the app). Our subscribers in Africa are very sensitive to innovation—this is another key insight.
En-Contact: So you can go on vacation, with these strong subscription figures and this organization in place?
Bakari Fofana: I would like to, but that is not the case. We continuously measure the quality of the customer experience using three indicators: NPS, Satcli, and speech quality, so that we can react quickly and feed cross-functional teams. Eight vendor management managers complement this system and keep it alive locally. Their mission is essential: to guarantee high-quality handling of subscriber requests, in collaboration with each business unit. Our promise may seem conceptual, but it is not—and neither is its daily execution: proximity, accessibility, quality, and satisfaction.
They monitor the customer experience for Canal+ International:
- VIPP-Interstis is our partner for speech quality, using a QM platform.
- INIT measures perceived Satcli.
- Viavoo listens to the voice of the customer across all channels (voice and digital).
- MS Innovation effectively uses the SMS channel across all African countries. The company has since joined the Opportunity Group.
As part of Canal+’s acquisition of MultiChoice, a pan-African management team has been established to steer the new entity. The merger brings together two giants of pay-TV in Africa and marks a new era for the continent’s audiovisual industry, combining local expertise, global vision, and strategic ambition.
At the helm of the newly unified group, Calvo Mawela, former CEO of MultiChoice, has been appointed Chairman of CANAL+ Africa, while David Mignot takes the reins of the new entity as CEO.
Cover image: Bakari Fofana at ECTFF (Expérience Client- The French Forum), 2018, © En-Contact
By Manuel Jacquinet
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