Adapting service for all buying journeys

Treating all customers equally

Present in 90 countries with 38,000 employees, Legrand is a worldwide manufacturing group with a 150-year heritage. It offers high added-value products, systems and services to energy professionals as well as end users. The company owns a comprehensive portfolio for tertiary, residential and industrial buildings that’s split into four main product categories: electrical infrastructure, digital infrastructure, user interfaces and connected building.

Legrand continues to develop its strategy driven by product and technological innovations, such the internet of things and technologies that measurably lower the energy consumption of buildings and housing structures. Its catalog features 300,000 product references in more than 90 product families.

A second lever for growth focuses on customer relationship innovation through improvements in data management and analytics. The company’s contact centers underpin success here — smoothing the sales process while supporting different business-to-business and business-to-consumer buying journeys.

“We’ve always been committed to providing partners with excellent attention, whether the end customer is an individual buying a power socket in a supermarket, or a professional working on a large-scale renovation or construction project for a multinational,” said David Gonzalez, Customer Relations Center Manager at Legrand France.

Consistently achieving such high standards was difficult. Relying on legacy on-premises technology meant system changes were complex and costly. The desire to free people from IT management burdens accelerated the search for an easy-to-deploy cloud contact center.

Managing multichannel shifts

Legrand was attracted to the maintenance-free flexibility that the Genesys Cloud platform offers. “We quickly rolled out a cloud solution that was built from the ground up, without spending years on development,” said Eric Guillot, Support Team and Projects Manager in the Legrand CRC. “Genesys Cloud gave us the capacity to evolve and configure our platform in fine detail, according to constantly changing needs. We can easily define skills-based routing and manage call queues.”

The company’s contact center teams have become more independent. The Genesys solution ensures efficient handling of 450,000 incoming and outgoing annual contacts, often helping customers choose their products and solutions, or checking that their installed products are working correctly.

“Call volumes have fallen, while email levels have risen,” added Guillot. “About 70% of inquiries take place over the phone, compared to 90% before the migration, with 20% now managed via email and the remainder split between post and fax.”

Transforming transparency and control

Crucially, system integration challenges no longer hold the business back. Now, with tight interconnection between the Genesys solution and Salesforce, agents don’t have to leave the CRM system. This means they can simultaneously see the customer’s recent history and they know how many times the person has called or the number of times they’ve hung up. And that enables them to create a more personalized greeting.

Consistently excellent customer experience

For the last 18 months, average handle time has remained stable at around 5.5 minutes. This lets agents deal with the problem properly and focus on customer satisfaction. Genesys Cloud has given Legrand flexibility to assign agents and remote workers and best manage those skill sets. For example, using tools to organize multiteam management and create records with clear follow-up actions and measures.

“We didn’t really have proper reporting before,” said Guillot. “Now, we know exactly how much time customers spend queuing and communicating, making it easier to identify the areas we need to work on.”

Delivering consistent customer experience, even during exceptional peaks, is no longer a major concern. “Genesys Cloud gives us the flexibility to manage resources should traffic levels rise sharply due to product launches, regulatory changes or adverse weather conditions that impact the electrical equipment used by our customers,” added Gonzales. “Our plan is to integrate new channels such as chat, social media, SMS and perhaps voice bots to continually improve customer recognition and offer differentiated experiences.”

“Genesys Cloud has allowed us to ensure seamless continuity of service during the COVID-related containment by deploying teleworking in a few hours without any difficulty. It was completely transparent to the customer,” concluded Gonzalez.