Under the terms of the contract, NextiraOne, the insurance group's long-time systems integrator, is developing a next-generation contact centre for Macif that will allow the company to benefit from the entire range of integrated software in the Genesys 7 suite.

The Macif IT and telecommunications departments wanted to modernise its call centre infrastructure by generalising computer-telephony integration (CTI) technologies and giving supervisors the means for forecasting calls and planning agents. After evaluating several commercially available solutions, the company selected NextiraOne's proposal to implement a full contact centre, including the entire Genesys suite consisting of Genesys Enterprise Routing Solution (ERS) for routing inbound calls, Genesys Outbound Contact Server (OCS) for outbound call campaigns, and Genesys Workforce Management (WFM) for high-level reporting output and management of agent schedules.

"Genesys satisfied our request in terms of both functional wealth and its know-how concerning customer organisations such as ours," said Dominique Baranger, director of the Integration and Architecture Pole and project manager at Macif. "We saw the Genesys solution as being the most productive in Macif's context. It was also the only one of all the solutions evaluated that satisfied all of our specifications due to its full suite of integrated solutions - ERS, OCS and WFM."

According to Franck Portz, account executive at NextiraOne in charge of project integration: "This contract is a real break with tradition in the sense that Macif decided to automate and professionalise its customer contact centres using a tool outside the private branch exchange. We're very pleased to get this new vote of confidence and to be able to continue coaching our long-time customer, Macif Assurances, as it upgrades its contact centre."

The implementation is a large regional win for Genesys: "This implementation of the entire Genesys 7 suite is a major step in the development of our operations in the Niort mutual insurance sector, as we look to expand our outreach in the financial services and insurance industries in this region," explained Romain Lucas, account executive with Genesys France.

"The rollout of this new contact centre is a highly strategic move for us, guaranteeing us certain productivity gains," added Dominique Baranger. "With the new infrastructure, we'll be able to provide improved service to our customers by better handling inbound and outbound traffic, as well as boosting the response time of our dedicated teams while controlling resources."

Before deploying the Genesys solution, Macif felt their customer service provisions were falling behind that of the other players in the banking and insurance sectors. The firm was not using any CTI tool, and calls were being routed site by site via a traditional automatic call distributor.

The Genesys 7 suite implementation is a major leap forward in the sector for Macif Assurances in terms of customer service structures. The company is now a trendsetter in its sector and the only one to have a contact centre as modern and abundant for inbound and outbound customer relationship management services. The suite, particularly the use of Genesys WFM planning tools, will give Macif a competitive edge in a tough banking and insurance market. The Genesys solutions will enable the company to provide better service to its customers and offer them new products based on customer preferences.

Macif Assurances currently employs a staff of 1,200 agents to manage some 10,000,000 inbound calls per year on its telephone platforms. The company plans to expand those numbers in 2007.