The customer The “Documentation Française”, a major editor and public references distributor, is active in the administrative, political, economic, social and international news fields. An editor, but also a distributor, the “Documentation Française” itself publishes around twenty periodicals, journals, and reviews under its own brand. It also diffuses other administrative, public, and semi public organizations’ publications

Since 1970, Pioneering in documentary information and data banks, “Documentation Française” continues to exploit the possibilities offered by new communication means and information technologies. Its governmental role of providing administrative information to the public in online supports is clearly established :

• The “Documentation Française” is the operator and the webmaster of www.service-public.fr, the French administration’s portal website.

• The “Documentation Française” also publishes the www.vie-publique.fr portal, as part of the government’s action to develop the information society. This service facilitates the internet users’ access to resources and data pertinent to the public debate main subjects.

The issues / the stakes

Launched on the 23^rd of October 2000 by the “Documentation Française”, www.service-public.fr was created as part of the government’s action plan "To prepare the entry of France in the information society”.

After one year of its launching, the site has recorded nearly 4,6 million visits and  approximately 32 million of pages have been consulted showing proof of its utility and of its ergonomics.

A vast communication campaign is decided upon with two main goals.  First, increase the notoriety of the website and secondly, upgrade the contents’ diversity. The campaign’s signature "service-public.fr: a first answer to your questions", gives the tone: access to information must be simple and easy.

Efficient management of incoming emails is key to the portal success. Facing the growing flow of inbound emails while targeting its high quality of service standards, the “Documentation Française” decided to implement a powerful inbound emails management solution before the communication campaign’s launching.

The deployment

The « Documentation Française » choose Akio Mail Center in November 2001 resulting from a national tender. The solution is at first dedicated to respond to emails issued from all the portal’s mailboxes and in particular to the administrative information requests.

In late 2003, Akio Mail Center is deployed to manage emails of the  www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr website’s sales mailboxes.

In July 2004, www.vie-publique.fr website’s emails are responded with Akio Mail Center.

And lastly, in early 2005, the « Documentation Française » included all the corporate mailboxes treatment in Akio workflow.

Approximately three hundred people based in more than ten different sites treat several hundreds of emails per day.

The benefits

Web-based access to the software enabled a particularly quick and easy deployment despite a much decentralized organization.

Some agents being specialized (employment, justice, administrative procedures, and so on) and others being more all-purpose therefore a skills management system was implemented.

The statistics module provided invaluable indications on the emails management activity : inbound flow by typology, quality of service, number of emails exchanged to answer a query, and so on.

 “Akio Mail Center’s utilization by the “Documentation Française” is a good example of knowledge mutualization, work in networks and effort done towards service quality for the public services users”, underlines Sandrine Rousseau, Service-public.fr’s product manager.