Multimedia.fr
Company: Akio SolutionsCustomer: multimedia.frSubmitted by: Akio Solutions600,000 members use the multimania.fr Web site to host a total of 4.4 million personal HTML pages. Multimania knows that the secret to this highly popular success story is that each member of the French-speaking Web community is kept satisfied.
This is why Multimania focuses so hard on maintaining a high quality dialogue with its users.
THE CHALLENGE
Multimania.fr gains competitive advantage by answering the e-mails from every single user.For multimania.fr, quality of response to e-mails can deliver big competitive rewards. But is there a comprehensive, rapid and accurate way to deal with a constantly growing volume of nearly 3,800 e-mails per month? However simple or complex, user queries always deserve a rapid, personal answer.
PROJECT FRAMEWORK/ORGANISATION
An urgent need to automate incoming mail processingMultimania.fr cannot afford to mislay a single e-mail in the server queues. Neither can it allow a single e-mail to receive several uncoordinated replies. Finally, just sending a bland acknowledgement of receipt will not satisfy users who are waiting for accurate information. “We had to deal with many difficulties of this kind.
At the same time, the volume of mail was increasing because of the growing popularity of multimania.fr. This is why we decided to act quickly to automate the way we processed the flow of incoming mail”, explains Charles-Christian Croix, Support Department Manager. Multimania.fr looked at the available products and opted for the AkioTM Mail Center (AMC) solution, which has proved to be unbeatable in terms of costs, functionalities, and technological compatibility.In fact, its technical architecture is really spot on.
Because the solution is 100% Internet, was developed under Linux, and is simple and easy to deploy, the multimania.fr support department was able to integrate it within three weeks.
Goal: to answer 70% of all queries within two hours!
With AkioTM Mail Center, multimania.fr can now answer the 200 e-mails it receives daily in optimal conditions. A range of functionalities contributes directly to reducing mail processing times, notably the pooled answers capability for identical queries: when several people have asked the same question, they will all receive the same e-mail answer.
“Whenever one of our services is closed temporarily for maintenance, this always generates a wave of questions. Though one of our key objectives is to answer each question individually, in a case like this we must first and foremost reassure our users. So obviously, the ability to send the same answer to several people is a big time-saver”, says Charles-Christian Croix.
Durable Web support
Paradoxically, Web support is a guarantee of durability for the multimania.fr support department. Why? Because it leaves a written trace that saves the operators at multimania.
fr from reprocessing a question that has already been dealt with, when they have the answer ready and available in their electronic mail box. However, AkioTM Mail Center allows multimania.fr to go a lot further. Each query is indexed with a reference number that enables all the correspondence with a given user to be collected and logged in a single individual folder.Different contact people in the multimania.
fr organisation can then access this correspondence to consult it or add extra information depending on what the customer is expecting to receive. Another functionality that facilitates the immediacy and durability of the correspondence is the knowledge base. With over 100 entries, it contains standard answers, documentation or procedures that are accessible through a simple tree structure, and can be used to quickly format the content of the answers. “This base is our main means of storing and exchanging temporary technical information”, adds Charles-Christian Croix.
Just one critical e-mail can make Akio Mail Center pay for itself
AkioTM Mail Center cuts e-mail processing times three- or fourfold, and within the next 18 months, multimania.fr plans to process each query at a unit cost of less than 2 French francs.
However, for Charles-Christian Croix, this is not the only way to look at ROI: “if we factor in the costs and financial losses that we have avoided, or the possible impact on the brand image of multimania.fr, AkioTM Mail Center might have paid for itself already by dealing with just one critical e-mail”.AkioTM Mail Center, an instrument to take multimania.fr forward into the futureMultimania.fr is constantly on the look-out for ways to enhance its service, and makes particular use of the AkioTMMail Center statistical functions (number of waiting e-mails, number of e-mails processed) and intends to extend this capability to develop a better knowledge of query typologies. In this way, multimania.
fr will be able to very quickly detect, for example, an error in the ergonomics, a bug linked to a particular platform, or a lack of documentation on a recently inaugurated service. The next step for multimania.fr will be to further develop AkioTM Mail Center’s groupware and e-mail process organisation functions. Because AkioTM Mail Center offers the ability to establish and maintain a long-term dialogue of incomparable quality with its customers, it is establishing itself as a strategic pillar of multimania.fr customer relations.
Akio Solutions has longstanding experience in developing Internet, Intranet and Extranet applications. Akio Solutions is a pioneer in Internet solution development for corporate e-mail management. Companies such as Degriftour, Ibazar, Selftrade and Woonoz.com chose AkioTM Mail Center to derive significant benefit from the customer loyalty possibilities offered by Internet and efficient e-mail management.
