Success Story : SFR (Altice)

Mobile Voice Services attract 7% of SFR’s customers

SFR is one of the three incumbent operators in the French market, which has been part of the Altice group since 2014. Looking for a new business stream capable of meeting multiple challenges (brand image, voice, innovation and ROI) in a difficult buyout context (departure plan, reduction of resources) SFR is bringing Mobile Concept Mobile Voice Services up to date in 2017. Since then, more than 7% of the customer base has called at least once during the year to consume a Mobile Voice Service.

THE BACKGROUND: An overall decrease in available resources

The reorganisation of the group’s activities following the acquisition by Altice forced the teams to continue to develop the activity in a difficult context of a departure plan and a decline in both financial and human resources.

The objectives required of the teams were diverse and varied, from the need to reduce costs while generating profits quickly and serving marketing through a good brand image. Achieving these usually divergent objectives seemed complicated.

Nevertheless, this is a situation that many companies and telephone operators are facing, namely, how to do more with less? How to build a brand image, be innovative and make turnover quickly without resources?

You are probably also confronted with this situation of lack of resources and lack of research on innovative subjects? Take five minutes to read on and discover what solutions The Mobile Concept has brought to SFR to help them through this difficult period.

LE CHALLENGE: Making innovation around the voice

Jean Pierre, 53 years old, having difficulty using the Internet and using a voice command to know the weather of the day

In this context, deploying innovative and value-creating projects quickly is a crucial challenge for existing teams in order to quickly win the trust of the new hierarchy.

In 2017, the subject of voice began to take shape and become a concrete reality in the telecom industry with the launch of the connected speaker with integrated Google voice assistant in August 2017. In order not to leave room for the web giants, the questioning of voice services has emerged at SFR. The need was to launch an innovative service very quickly in order to position the operator on voice subjects. Discussions and reflections were carried out in the company with the various teams and partners in order to work together on this theme and propose avenues of reflection to lead to a product.

SETTING UP MOBILE VOICE SERVICES WITH THE MOBILE CONCEPT HAS BEEN A GREAT SPRINGBOARD FOR THE TEAM AND SFR. AN INNOVATIVE VOICE SERVICE, DEPLOYS QUICKLY, WITHOUT ANY NECESSARY AND PROFITABLE INVESTMENT! IT WAS EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING TO DO!

The Mobile Concept worked with the content department to deliver a product while respecting the following internal constraints related to current events:

A time constraint: it was necessary to produce a consumable product as quickly as possible by the end customer
A constraint of resources (both financial and human): it was necessary to count on the people available by consuming as little time as possible and of course without spending money or investing
A marketing constraint: it was necessary to achieve a positive result for the brand, in order to promote it to end customers while respecting the theme of voice
A business constraint: the product to be delivered had to be profitable, both in the short term (3 months) and in the medium term (3 years) and with a minimum target of 1 million euros in turnover to be achieved over 1 year.

THE SOLUTION: Boldness, understanding, action

SIM cards are still a distribution channel that operators control and on which we rely to distribute our Mobile Voice Services

The Mobile Concept then proposed to set up Mobile Voice Services on a channel that had previously been little used by operators but that they knew how to use: SIM cards. This available channel is a customer’s first contact with the operator and is free of any competition. Mobile Voice Services then met all of SFR’s objectives and complied with all of its constraints:

Fast deployment time: mobile voice services were deployed in 2.5 months
Without resources: The Mobile Concept has provided a free project manager at SFR to coordinate the deployment of services. At SFR, the project involved only 4 people from 3 to 4 hours a week: the SIM card project manager, a network project manager, a lawyer and a marketing project manager. In total, we estimate the working time of all employees on the subject to be a little less than 80 hours, or 2 working days per employee for a cost of €0 spent by SFR!
A marketing image: voice services support the inclusive role of the SFR brand and its action to promote the inclusion of all end customers
A very profitable business: more than €1.3 million in turnover was generated in 7 months with a business model optimized for this new channel and this new product.

RESULT: A Mobile Voice Services cardboard

By deploying Mobile Voice Services in record time, SFR has succeeded in combining both an innovative project with difficult constraints with the support of The Mobile Concept. By providing our historical technical, network and marketing skills to our client, as well as our specific voice interface design skills, we have succeeded in creating a quality service that radically changes the traditional approach to Mobile Voice Services.

SFR now generates several million euros per year thanks to Mobile Voice Services, in addition to having initiated, thanks to The Mobile Concept, a reflection on the voice identity of the SFR brand to be offered on all channels in contact with the customer.