The customer    Created in 1949, the RATP or “Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens” (the Independent Paris Transport Authority) is a financially independent public sector industrial and commercial organization.   The RATP is a main contributor to the life force in Paris and its suburbs and is one of the largest multimodal transport organizations in the world.  RATP employs 44 625 men and women that service millions of passengers transported by the RER (Express Regional Network), metro trains, buses, and tramways each day.

The issues and the stakes

In 1996, the RATP launched its first internet site and rapidly started receiving large amount of emails.

The “Travelers Information” service team encountered increasing difficulties to manage the email load efficiently and was acerbated by the fact that numerous incoming emails were out of their competence fields.

Former RATP’s Customers Relation Manager Christine Nicolas-Charles remembers, “The team was receiving no less than 7 500 emails per month and was unable to cope with the volume as well as its content”. The enquiries were an assortment of subjects from itineraries, destinations, ticketing, to work strikes and employment opportunities, and even noise annoyance.

The RATP therefore decided to launch a project organized around an inbound email management system interconnected with the multitude of skills available within the company.

Akio Mail Center deployment

The RATP ultimately opted for Akio Mail Center after studying various solutions on the marketplace.

Christine Nicolas-Charles stated “Akio Mail Center is an easy, flexible, user friendly software enabling both a non-computer user or an internet specialist user to quickly work on”.

  In 2001, after months of testing, the Akio Mail Center is widespread in late October with the new RATP’s web portal launch. Deployed at approximately twenty (20) positions, the solution not only centralizes all the website incoming emails and routes them to the correct skills, but also proposes pertinent templates and monitors emails management service activity. In this first phase, only emails related to the Metro activity were managed through Akio.

At the end 2002 - one year after Akio’s deployment - RATP conducted a satisfaction survey to learn more about their customers’ needs and receive feedback in order to improve service quality. Realized with Akio’s WebSurvey module, the satisfaction survey was enthusiastically welcomed by RATP customers and attained an unexpected participation rate.

Christine Nicolas-Charles said, “This survey enabled us to precisely know our internet user customer’s profile as well as their needs and expectations of our service’s content and design. Great feedback like this boosts our agent’s motivation”.

Converted by Akio’s efficiency, RATP continued the solution deployment by integrating the management of emails concerning the Express Regional Network in 2004 and the bus network in early 2005.

In early 2006, the RATP launched the “online agency” via its website www.ratp.fr - a new service enabling customers to buy and manage their annual subscription online. In the core of this new service, Akio Mail Center facilitates the online ticketing subscription process.

RATP is currently working on another Akio deployment project to be completed by the end of 2006 to manage emails related to RATP’s Social Insurance Coordination Fund.

To date, RATP has deployed eighty-five (85) workstations dedicated to inbound emails management from the website www.ratp.fr.

The benefits

Akio Mail Center’s role is numerous and multiple.

To begin with, the graphic mode routing rules direct emails based on their subjects and webform contents (Bus, Metro, and RER lines) to approximately twenty (20) specific mailboxes organized by the company’s groups/sectors and by skills. Also, a knowledge database allows access to response templates. This database is regularly updated by administrators with new templates suggested by Akio agents.

The Artificial Intelligence engine uses statistic analysis methods to suggest various possible response templates classified by relevance. Akio can also send an automatic acknowledgment receipt to internet users.

In order to produce relevant service statistics, any incoming email is categorized via a predefined list by an agent. Finally, threads are archived for a period of one year to ensure a complete traceability of actions such as replied, forwarded, archived, sent to trash bin, and so on. Project results - improved quality responses to internet users’ enquiries usually within five (5) days.

The solution’s user-friendly interface has a fast learning curve and is well accepted by users and easy to deploy. Emmanuel Santoni, current Customers Service Manager states, ”This point is essential for us.  People who are potentially in charge of email responses can be found all over the company and email management typically represents only a small part of their activity.  In fact, these agents can work in transport Customer Services (metro, RER, bus, or tramway), the human resources department, the technical services, or the media library. Yet, RATP entirely decentralized complaints and information queries management. In conclusion, we needed a common solution accepted by people who support a consistent answer to give our customers a unified response”.