Operational efficiency maximized: A 40% reduction in ticket volume handled by advisors
Customer experience reinvented: 24/7 availability providing instant, precise answers for a seamless user journey
Teams empowered: Automation of repetitive tasks allows advisors to focus on high-value expertise
Innovation unlocked: Strategic use of interaction data to drive continuous improvement and upskill the workforce with AI
Cegid, a European leader in cloud management solutions, transformed its customer support by deploying Google Cloud Customer Engagement Suite. By integrating AI, the company optimized request processing and reduced ticket volume by 40%, delivering a seamless 24/7 user experience while empowering teams to develop new high-value expertise.
Cegid, a European leader in cloud management solutions, transformed its customer support by deploying Google Cloud Customer Engagement Suite. By integrating AI, the company optimized request processing and reduced ticket volume by 40%, delivering a seamless 24/7 user experience while empowering teams to develop new high-value expertise.
Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI for rapid and tailored deployment
Among the many AI projects considered, Cegid chose to start by transforming its support, a strategic service for a company that handles nearly one million annual interactions with its 750,000 customers. "Our analysis revealed that about 65% of requests to our support concerned relatively simple questions related to the use of our solutions or administrative inquiries," specifies Olivier Arnoux. "This was an obvious opportunity to use AI to provide even more efficient and 24/7 available support, while improving customer satisfaction and optimizing the work of our agents."
Before realizing its vision, Cegid faced a strategic choice: adopt a "turnkey" conversational AI solution or develop its own infrastructure.
Our vision is to leverage AI to enhance business performance and help our customers turn every challenge into an opportunity. We also want to use AI to improve our internal processes, particularly in HR, sales support, and customer support.
Olivier Arnoux
Chief Experience Officer, Cegid
After in-depth analysis, the company opted for Google Cloud Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI (formerly known as Dialogflow), attracted by the excellence of its models in processing French, cost competitiveness, and platform modularity.
"Rather than a monolithic AI solution, we chose to build our own conversational infrastructure with Google Cloud," explains Olivier Arnoux. "This approach, combined with the modularity of Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI, offers us the flexibility to customize the experience, evolve gradually, and develop valuable internal expertise. At the same time, Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI offers us the perfect balance between excellence in French language processing, analytical power, and ease of integration with our existing ticketing and CRM systems."
"Augmented" advisors for greater efficiency
Leveraging the three modules of Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI, Cegid developed three solutions that radically transform customer experience and operational efficiency.
Rather than a monolithic AI solution, we chose to build our own conversational infrastructure with Google Cloud. At the same time, Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI offers us the perfect balance between excellence in French language processing, analytical power, and ease of integration with our existing ticketing and CRM systems.
Olivier Arnoux
Chief Experience Officer, Cegid
Designed with Google Cloud Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI's Virtual Agent module (a chatbot for direct customer interaction), the first solution is accessible directly from the company's client portal and offers users immediate and accurate answers to their questions. Unlike traditional chatbots limited to pre-formatted responses, this agent establishes a true conversational dialogue, understanding context and adapting its language based on the user's expertise. When an issue exceeds its capabilities, the agent intelligently suggests creating a ticket by summarizing the exchange for human advisors.
Integrated into the support advisors' interface, the second solution relies on Agent Assist, a Google Cloud Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI module that provides instant access to relevant information for complex customer issues, suggests appropriate responses, and facilitates the drafting of accurate reports. "Advisors can thus focus on active listening and solving high-value problems, while AI ensures remarkable accuracy in the information provided," emphasizes Olivier Arnoux.
Still in the deployment phase, the third project is based on Insights, an interaction analysis module designed to extract data on call times, customer sentiment, and more. "This technology gives us unprecedented visibility into our customers' needs," notes Olivier Arnoux. "Previously, we only had a grasp of issues that generated tickets. Today, we capture all inquiries, even informal ones, which allows us to understand real expectations much more precisely and identify opportunities for improvement that we would never have detected otherwise."
"This project has been a true technological adventure, and we could count on the exceptional commitment of Google's technical teams," adds Olivier Arnoux. "Their support throughout the deployment played a key role in upskilling our own teams and accelerating the project."
AI boosts productivity and talent
Launched only a few months ago, the project already handles an average of 225 conversations per day, totaling over 34 605 conversations since its launch with a 93% response reliability rate and only 17% escalation to a ticket. It demonstrates its effectiveness with an overall 17% reduction in support ticket volume, a figure that even climbs to 40% for areas where the virtual agent has been specifically deployed. User satisfaction rates are also significantly increasing.
This technical transformation, which is at the heart of CEGID's AI strategy, was supported by a multidisciplinary project team of nine people: four business experts, three members of CEGID's IT department, and two specialists from the Google Cloud integrator. This ensured continuous development with releases every two weeks, representing more than 20 updates since the launch, guaranteeing constant improvement in the customer experience. The close collaboration and assistance of the Google teams was also essential, enabling rapid skill development and acceleration of this strategic project.
This technical transformation has been accompanied by an innovative human reorganization, marked by the emergence of new specialized roles within the company, such as conversational referents and AI Product Managers. These experts ensure the continuous improvement of virtual agents, meticulously analyzing interaction data to optimize responses and adapt models to the specific needs of different Cegid solutions. "We are not replacing humans; we are transforming their missions," explains Olivier Arnoux. "Our advisors now focus on complex issues that truly leverage their expertise, rather than handling simple and repetitive requests."
We want to go further, leveraging AI to anticipate technical incidents and offer proactive assistance even before our customers encounter difficulties. Our collaboration with Google Cloud allows us to look to the future with confidence. AI is not limited to optimizing our services: it redefines our approach to customer support and strengthens our position as a key player in user experience.
Olivier Arnoux
Chief Experience Officer, Cegid
Improve, scale, innovate... the Cegid method for staying ahead
Building on these initial successes, Cegid now intends to capitalize on the learning capabilities of Google Cloud's AI solutions. "During the first tests, 39% of responses were correct," explains Olivier Arnoux. "This rate quickly rose to over 70% thanks to continuous platform improvement and enrichment of knowledge bases. This rapid progress also demonstrates the remarkable adaptability of Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI. To reach a new level of reliability, Cegid is now exploring the integration of Google's latest-generation models, like Gemini, at the heart of its solution. This evolution aims to surpass current performance standards to handle even more complex questions with greater precision, while benefiting from a cost-to-performance ratio that accelerates innovation."
Cegid now aims to fully exploit the potential of generative AI to strengthen its solutions and optimize its processes by structuring its approach around three interconnected axes. The "Improve" axis focuses on continuous content improvement, with knowledge base standardization to optimize their utilization by AI. The "Scale" axis aims to progressively extend the solution to all of its 80 products, including recently acquired companies. Finally, with "Expand," Cegid wants to explore promising new uses, such as the integration of virtual agents, proactive incident detection, and automatic content generation from customer interactions.
"We want to go further, leveraging AI to anticipate technical incidents and offer proactive assistance even before our customers encounter difficulties. Our collaboration with Google Cloud allows us to look to the future with confidence. AI is not limited to optimizing our services: it redefines our approach to customer support and strengthens our position as a key player in user experience," concludes Olivier Arnoux.
Cegid is a European leader in cloud management solutions for professionals in finance (treasury, tax, ERP), human resources (payroll, talent management), accounting, retail, and entrepreneurship.
True to its culture of innovation, Cegid quickly recognized the rise of generative AI as a major strategic opportunity. "Our vision is to leverage generative AI to enhance business performance and help our customers turn every challenge into an opportunity," explains Olivier Arnoux, Chief Experience Officer at Cegid. "We also want to use AI to improve our internal processes, particularly in HR, sales support, and customer support."
Industries: IT, Technology
Location: France
Products: Google Cloud, Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI