Customer rights and distributor responsibilities

Frédéric Colard

Director of Operations, Générale de téléphone

Apart from the quality of an operator’s offering, its main source of value is people. As a distributor, we have to build relationships based on trust, both with our employees and our customers. Without loyal customers and committed employees, you just don’t have a business.

At Générale de téléphone, we distribute Orange services. We recognise that our customers aren’t all the same — we treat them as individuals. Because every customer is different, we pride ourselves on providing each of them with exemplary service. Our goal is to create long-term relationships, making sure that our customers can access the very best of Orange all over France.

How does ethics come in to this? Well, too many of us tend to think that businesses are unethical, and just want to sell their products, regardless of what customers actually need. But that doesn’t take into account the fact that customers are rational and they have a right to transparency and services that have been adapted to their individual situation.

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Nor does it take into account the responsibilities that we have to our customers. We must deal with their requests quickly. We must offer them whatever package is best suited to their needs, explaining and helping set up products, accessories and services. If something goes wrong, we have to handle the issue until it is resolved. We also have a responsibility to provide customers with information and training when it comes to our new offers and services. Orange Bank is a great example of this.