From Tam-Tam to Acticall: 10 years in the life of a call centre

Pagers, directory enquiries, customer services… The history of a site that has moved with the times.

Whether they are offering directory enquiries or customer services, and whether located just a stone’s throw away or several thousand miles away from their users, call centres are all based on the same idea: that life can be as simple as a phone call.

But does what works (ideally) for those who use their services also work for the telephone centres themselves? The recent tenth anniversary of business activity at the Nancy call centre, Acticall, sheds some significant as well as timely light on the question. For while business has been continuous at the site on Boulevard Albert 1st in that time, the size and nature of that business has certainly gone through considerable changes.

But let us go back to the end of 1997, in other words the prehistory of telephony, for that was when, under the aegis of Cégétel, the Nancy site opened its doors to subscribers of ‘Tam-Tam’ (yes, those now virtually forgotten little liquid crystal pagers…). This business, which initially had around 20 employees, obviously lost its raison d’etre once, by 2000, mobile phones had become widespread. No problem: the site switched tack and took charge of SFR’s directory enquiries service. Good choice, for the service became hugely popular with the new mobile phone users. The result: the centre, which by that time had 350 employees, decided to devote itself exclusively to phone book services, persuaded that it was a profitable as well as durable niche in which to be positioned. However… In October 2005, the deregulation of the directory enquiries market led firstly to SFR withdrawing their business, and then, less predictably the collapse of the French directory enquires market. The famous 118 numbers that we had all heard about at such length in the adverts did not manage to convince users, and the call centre in Nancy, which, at that time, was surviving on this business alone, found itself with its back against the wall. “Either we changed our business, or we would have disappeared," says current site manager Thibault Constans, giving a retrospective analysis.

The change took place in October 2006, but under the aegis of a new owner (Acticall), and the centre now concentrates exclusively on customer services. This was a real challenge, Thibault Constans admits, “since this move meant extensive training for the majority of the staff”. But Acticall went for it, convinced of the benefit to be derived from the move and the potential of the Nancy site. A year later, the challenge seems to have been won. The call centre provides the customer service for two major companies, including Gaz de France, its rise in strength has continued, and it is planned that 150 new staff will be hired.

The moral of the story: the life of a call centre is nothing like as simple as the call that you put through to them. Even if business has remained stable these last three years, there is reason to hope for growth. Especially in Nancy, where the business employees a total of 2,500 workers spread over 48 centres, i.e. 1% of the workforce in France for this sector.