Innovation

Adrien CURCI, Business Unit Manager of Roiret Résidentiel in the VEF Tertiaire Centre-est Sud pole, tells us about an interesting innovation set up in his business unit.

What is it?

Smart Agenda is a connected scheduling system that can be accessed from anywhere. We use it to schedule work for our customers online, depending on the available time slots.

Why did you decide to use this solution?

When Laurent CONTY, a Project Manager at Roiret Résidentiel, was expanding his residential renovation activity, he realised that he was spending a lot of time scheduling onsite work – making appointments with tenants and sending them reminders.
After examining the commercially available solutions, he discovered that a company in Lyon had developed the Smart Agenda system. He presented it as part of his SSP and I thought is looked very interesting. It didn’t take long for him to persuade me to use it.

How does it work in practice?

When we have a job to do, we post a notice in the lobby of the building we will be working on. The notice provides a QR Code that tenants can scan and it also gives the Internet link they can use to directly access the appointment schedule.

When a customer’s address is shown as needing work, he selects his address and then chooses the time slot he wants to schedule.
Work may take for four hours or even a whole day to complete. We have configured the tool to show how much time will be needed, so the customer can tell how long we will be present.

A notification email is then sent to the deputy project manager, who organises his schedule and assigns the technician.

What are the advantages?

Beyond enabling Laurent to schedule his residential renovation work, I can see additional ways the system can be used, especially in very large new build residential projects where it could manage snag lists.
This is a very efficient tool for scheduling but it can also provide visibility for our customers, who are constantly sending us reminders. Smart Agenda will enable us to show them that we are proactive while being transparent in our activities.

How would you assess the results so far?

For the time being we have deployed the solution exclusively with Est Métropole Habitat, one of our social housing partner customers, for which we have purchase order agreements for residential renovation.

We have only been using the system for three months, but my impression is that we have virtually halved the amount of time spent on the telephone.
Let me also stress that this could also be an opportunity for VINCI Facilities. Their technicians could use Smart Agenda to schedule maintenance work. It would be like a Doctolib* for buildings.

* an online medical appointment scheduling service

Available in english: https://www.smartagenda.fr/