Building the business around customers

Becoming more customer-centric

One of the world’s leading retailers for office supplies and workplace products, Lyreco Group is a thriving €2 billion business with 9,500 employees, nearly 2,000 of whom are in France. Set to grow to 800 agents across 25 contact centers, these global operations involve 17 subsidiaries around the world.

Customer experience is the foundation of performance at Lyreco. To stay ahead of the curve, the company has embarked on an in-depth modernization of its contact centers. The project is part of a global process to reinforce the quality of customer relations, combining proximity, team commitment and best-in-class digital solutions. The goal was to simplify, personalize and support the buyer more effectively throughout their purchasing journey — from product selection to the delivery and management of their account.

Historically, sales and service functions were distributed with most customer interactions taking place over the phone. In addition to scheduling appointments for sales teams and channel distributors, agents confirm purchases and shipping details, provide product information, and help customers navigate the company’s website. However, Lyreco lacked a common approach for managing calls, reports and results.

“Our local roots allow us to form close relationships with our customers,” said Nelson Oliveira, Product Owner, Customer Care at Lyreco. “Our contact centers, located locally in the 25 countries in which we operate, play a key role. We wanted to go further by strengthening our knowledge of the customer and guaranteeing quality of service. Hence the need to share information for a 360-degree view of the customer journey to ensure a truly omnichannel, personalized and seamless approach.”

System-agnostic approach simplifies rollout

Rather than continuing to invest in an aging on-premises system, Lyreco chose an agile cloud-based approach. Following a tender, four solutions were shortlisted, with the Genesys Cloud solution platform coming out on top.

“Genesys scored highest where it mattered most — maturity, ease of deployment and scalability,” said Romain Dupont, Project Leader, Customer Care Department at Lyreco. “We piloted Genesys Cloud with 250 users in five countries over four months and were so impressed with the performance and user experience that we made it our new global standard.”

The all-in-one Genesys Cloud platform makes it simple for Lyreco to use inbound, outbound, workforce management, and communicate and collaborate features. Lyreco also benefits from the Genesys Cloud telephony server and Zendesk CRM system integration.

Until this point, each Lyreco subsidiary had chosen its own technology. “Genesys Cloud Edge allows us to deploy the solution very quickly, regardless of the local infrastructure in each subsidiary,” said Dupont. “So, we can retain PSTN telephone links, IP telephony and SIP gateways. And we get better disaster recovery as well.”

Empowering managers and agents

At the company’s French headquarters alone, the Genesys Cloud platform ensures that 3,500 daily calls are handled expertly and proficiently. With more subsidiaries about to migrate, that number will rise to 10,000-plus per day. Lyreco has already seen a difference.

“Although it’s early days, we can do things we couldn’t do before — like switching traffic between sites, routing calls to the most qualified agent and improving follow-up action along the customer journey,” said Dupont.

Clunky handsets have been replaced with sleek headsets and click-to-dial softphones. Videoconferencing, screen sharing and chat tools make it easy to connect with colleagues. CRM system integration helps identify customers and potential reasons for calling. And agents don’t waste time re-keying information on multiple screens and apps.

“Our workforce has an older age profile, so we anticipated resistance to change, but they’ve been quick to adopt Genesys Cloud,” said Dupont.

Seasonal demand spikes are much easier to plan for and manage now with the Genesys Cloud platform. Back-office operations run with greater automation and accuracy. Call data is input into the workforce management tool, enabling managers to fine-tune resources in line with service levels. And forecasts consider when agents are on break, vacation, sick leave or in training.

Transformation feeds great customer experience

The digital transformation carried out within the Lyreco Group optimizes customer and employee user experience. This is an important step in moving toward a more omnichannel approach to managing customers and harmonizing customer service internationally.

Now, the company can track each exchange and report on KPIs using the Genesys solution, which has been integrated with its Zendesk application. Operations are also more efficient. The implementation of the Genesys Cloud platform, coupled with a redesign of its operational model, has enabled a 50% reduction in call response time. As a result, satisfaction ratings consistently hover around 95%.

Soon agents can make product recommendations based on traced and grouped information accessed via a single interface. And they’ll be able to contact customers again after a missed call and identify opportunities to increase first-call resolution.

“We nailed our objective to build a common solution capable of supporting our long-term growth, while establishing clear CX metrics and driving closer collaboration between our subsidiaries,” concluded Dupont.