The timing was not ideal to present this afternoon the refoundation of the site Voyages-SNCF.com and speak of a “new customer experience”, after the failure of the computer system, last Sunday, at the Montparnasse train station. Even if for Guillaume Pepy, the boss of the railway company, there was no question of mixing the two topics: the problem of infrastructure is “the responsibility of Patrick Jeantet, the boss of the SNCF Network (ex RFF),” he stated from the outset. Adding that the latter would “by the end of the week”, the action plan required by the minister of Transport.
It must be said that to the boss of the group, the issue behind the launch of the new site YES.sncf, is not that a simple name change or a technological feat. “This is part of an ambitious recovery plan of the great distance,” he says. The group seeks no less than 15 million of additional passengers on TGV and intercités trains (ex Coral) in 2020. A total of 115 million passengers in three years. The figures at the end of October compared to last year are encouraging for the direction : + 9 million passengers (+ 6 million for TGV classic and +1 million for trains Ouigo. From 10th December, trains, low cost airlines will also begin to roll at the start of Paris-Montparnasse (Vaugirard), before they make their appearance the next year in other parisian railway stations. The SNCF is hoping to be able to double the number of passengers in 2018, covering 14 million customers.
Double-digit growth
“Yes.sncf is in line with this approach, accurate to his side Rachel Picard, executive director of Voyages SNCF, bringing more simplicity in the choice of offerings and developing new services.” Among the novelties proposed : an Alert “small price” will allow customers to receive notifications on their journeys favourite at the rates they have requested. The service of the customer relationship will also be now available 24 hours on 24 and 7 days on 7. Finally, an option “YES bot” will allow you to achieve directly in a natural language, the research of tickets and reservations.
Here again, the growth targets are ambitious : With 14 million unique visitors YES.sncf is the first e-commerce site French (as compared to 20 million for Amazon). In 2016, the subsidiary of the SNCF has sold 86 million tickets with $ 75 million in France. This is 4.5% higher than the previous year. In 2017, this growth should be “two-digit” announced Guillaume Pepy.
A new app “mobility”
But for the boss of the SNCF, it is to go even further. Dreaming of making the railway company a group “of all mobilities”, it promises to create a multimodal platform, available on an app, combining train, bus, carpooling, or bicycles. According to him, “these modes do cannibalisent but to complement it : 20% of the people who take our buses Ouibus say that they would not have traveled otherwise ; 50% of the customers of the trains Ouigo say the same thing.”
The first step should see the day early 2018, with a data warehouse that is shared with partners such as RATP, Transdev and Blablacar. What enable us to create a “personal mobility”, which is available 24 hours on 24, which will take into account the travel, and combine it with all the offers available on the market, regardless of the mode of transport.
