Groupama Biztosító simplifies telephony, bringing 150 branch offices closer to customers with Teams Phone

Part of a multi-line international group, Groupama Biztosító offers a wide range of insurance products to more than 1.3 million customers in Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia. "We were a very traditional company" begins László Farkas, IT operations manager at Groupama. “You had to start work on Monday morning, finish on Friday afternoon, and always work from the office. But with time, the demand from our end customers to be more mobile, flexible, and available has deepened. And when the pandemic came, it made the need to transform even more pressing."

Familiar features at scale

Groupama's road to flexible, multi-channel client communication started in 2017. "First, we modernized devices, hardware components, and network topology. Then, in 2020, we introduced Microsoft 365 with Teams for internal collaboration to run the business smoothly as we had to transition to home office during the pandemic,” says László Farkas. But our telephony was still outdated." Maintaining a traditional, on-premises based telephone system in more than 150 offices nationally slowed down IT operations. Upgrading over 135 Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephony switches for customers to connect to their local agents, was on the cards, but it would incur excessive costs. That was when Groupama decided to move to cloud-based telephony.

To address the requirement for modernization of telephony communication, the company turned to S&T Consulting Hungary Kft., a software integrator and Microsoft's Partner of the Year from 2019, 2021 and 2022. The goal was to simplify the telephony infrastructure and connect people across the hybrid workplace. "We decided to replace the outdated on-premise telephony with the cloud based Teams Phone. These were natural extensions of the Microsoft 365 platform that Groupama already had. But it also delivered all the features needed," says Tibor Farkas, Unified Communications Team Leader , S&T Consulting Hungary Kft. Additionally, many end users were already familiar with Teams, as they used it internally during the lockdown. "We had used features like chat, file sharing, and cloud-based collaboration, so it was easy to add this new voice function," adds Tibor Farkas.

First, a pilot program was launched at the headquarters. Groupama's internal training professionals got involved in facilitating the onboarding. "They simplified training materials to three pages, enough to start with Teams immediately," says László Farkas. The first users could play with the system, try core features and functionalities, and provide feedback. Once these pilot users were comfortable with the system, all other teams and departments received access to the solution.

Seamless transition between rooms and devices

The new platform fosters truly immersive group meetings among hybrid teams. It can be adjusted to any meeting space and connect any number of online and onsite participants—allowing them to collaborate efficiently with useful tools on deck. "I can send a chat message to my Croatian and Slovakian colleagues, ask if they're available, and start an interactive video meeting within seconds," László Farkas says. "And I have all the files I need for the call on my SharePoint site."

Taking calls anywhere makes agents mobile, flexible, and truly independent. It also means that response times are faster, as customer service teams are not tied to their office desks. "Working from the branch, our agents log in to the call queue to accept external phones. And at home, they can take incoming calls on their mobile phones, without customers even realizing," László Farkas says.

Instant, inclusive enterprise-grade communication

The new cloud-based system has reduced telephony maintenance costs by 70 percent by eliminating the support of 135 outdated PBXs, desk phone sets and replacing them with the telephony service of Microsoft Teams Phone. This also removed the need for onsite maintenance visits. Moreover, agents can now focus on keeping their organizations connected with a simple-to-manage experience over the cloud, using the existing notebooks and mobile phones for answering and initiating calls. It also delivers advanced security and compliance features like single sign-on and two-factor authentication. "Protecting our users and systems is much easier because Microsoft handles security upgrades," confirms László Farkas. Additionally, the users can manage their profiles and availabilities independently without seeking support from the IT department.

"Thanks to the multi-channel, inclusive communication unlocked by Microsoft Teams Phone, we have evolved from a traditional insurance company to a new-era, agile enterprise that brings close teams, branches, and customers," sums up László Farkas. By now, Groupama's agents have embraced the new system and continue exploring more advanced use cases to enhance internal and external communication. Plans include introducing Teams Rooms. “We want to further bridge the gap between people working remotely and those in the office with a meeting room solution that allows everyone to be seen, heard, and fully participate from anywhere,” he ends.