Orange wanted to speed up the digitization of its sales and customer relations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, in order to capture the value resulting from the development of digital uses in the said regions. It turned to Sofrecom to support certain countries as they defined their digital strategy and to develop an implementation roadmap appropriate for each context. Erwan Gaultier, VP Digital Channels & Customer Experience, discusses this innovative and ambitious project.
“Digital technology offers a tremendous source of leverage for developing sales, improving the customer experience and cutting operational costs. We wanted to anticipate changes in our customers’ uses on the B2C market, and initiate a transformation of the Orange customer experience as quickly as possible. Our aim is to capture the opportunities offered by digital. It was important that we steer this transformation with a 360° approach, to take into account all the challenges connected with digital technology. Digital is so much more than just online features and a technical solution. For us, the aim was to provide a complete and comprehensive response. A whole ecosystem thus had to be set up, with attractive services, promoted and facilitated so that they could become familiar and adopted, and redesigned internal working methods, accepted by all.
To this end, the Sofrecom team first assessed the digital maturity of our customers and the Orange teams, by country. This review made it possible to analyze the customer journey along all channels, identify the various interactions with customers and establish a diagnostic view of the functional coverage, existing IT functionalities and digital skills in the teams.
Based on the findings, we built a target vision of the digital transformation, in collaboration with the operational teams and the executive committee of each Orange subsidiary. The target customer experience was translated into a transformation roadmap, divided into 3 enablers: IT, operational and HR. To give substance to this vision, we also approved, with all the stakeholders, a cost-cutting ambition, a turnover target for the digital channels, and a migration path, from physical customer relations to digital-based.
Lastly, Sofrecom’s consultants drew up an operational implementation plan and a business case estimating the potential gains of this digital transformation.
On the strength of this first successful experience in the MEA area, we asked Sofrecom to replicate the approach in Romania and Slovakia.
By adapting to the specific contexts and differing maturity levels of each of the subsidiaries participating in the project, Sofrecom’s experts in Digital Innovation and Strategic Marketing enabled us to successfully make this transformation. They did a wonderful job leading all the stakeholders through a co-construction process, to convince and gain their support for the project. The proposed implementation roadmap has proven very operational and been integrated by everyone. The use of Agile methodologies and Design Thinking, combined with a strong results-focused culture has made it possible to unite the teams around a shared ambition, put forward factual solutions taking into account the voice of the customer and deliver results on schedule.
The project has not only made it possible to raise awareness about the opportunities offered by digital technology, but also to put into perspective each of the levers to be interconnected. In particular, it cast light on the need to have the teams in charge of digital work together with the Company's other departments. In the first subsidiaries targeted, we have already been able to see measurable changes in use, as well as improvements in turnover and customer satisfaction”.
