02. A WORLD OF SERVICES

Rexel is adjusting its value propositions to focus on products and services that are more segmented and better suited to its customers' various needs. Thanks to its omnichannel approach, the Group ensures access to its products, solutions, and expertise anytime, anywhere in the world, with the aim of constantly making the customer experience simpler and more efficient.

  • 2 million
    customer contacts per day.
    16,000
    sales representatives including 8,000 in outside sales.
  • A variety of proximity contacts

    In addition to being a key expectation among its professional customers, proximity is one of Rexel’s strategic fundamentals, which relies on the density of its branch network and on a systematically omnichanal approach, with the objective of continuously improving its level of service.

    Rexel’s customers thus have at their disposal nine distribution channels, both physical and remote, adapted to suit their needs and preferences. A powerful branch network is an entry point for many professionals. This local channel provides several thousand immediately available products, the retrieval of orders placed as late as the previous evening for tens of thousands of additional SKUs, and the advice of sales representatives. Through the call center, customers can place their orders and obtain a quick answer to their quotation requests or technical questions. Furthermore, a single point of contact dedicated to each customer has been created. At the Customer Solutions Center, specialists in every domain can be consulted. To simplify order processes, a digital catalogue, EDI, is directly incorporated into certain customers’ IT systems. Webshops also offer an extended product offering as well as many other services such as chat with experts or click & collect to choose a pickup point for order retrieval. For on-the-go shopping, smartphone and tablet apps can be used to check the availability of a product, order it, or locate the nearest branch.

    Rexel goes to every length to simplify its customers’ everyday lives and to help improve their performance. The Group supplies professionals with the products and solutions they need, whenever and wherever they may need them.

Thomas Moreau
President of Rexel France

“The special, personalized relationship we develop with each customer is based on Rexel’s innovative channels, solutions and tools.”

Personalized transactional solutions

Effective levers for lowering costs and improving procurement reliability, the robust transactional solutions that Rexel provides for its key account customers optimize purchase management and automate all or some transactions. They can be personalized according to the size of the company, its IT system and its purchase volume. Electronic catalogues thus meet customers’ technical specifications and recover their choice of items, with the corresponding negotiated prices.
Provided on request, PunchOut and OCI enable shopping carts to be filled from Rexel’s e-commerce sites and imported into customers’ IT systems. Moreover, to facilitate marketplace set-up, the Group has formed partnerships with the sector’s leaders. Additionally, through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Rexel optimizes the processing costs of orders, billing and other customer documents. Thanks to this wide array of continually improving transactional solutions, the Group facilitates, optimizes and secures its customers’ purchases every day.

  • 1,900
    branches in 25 countries.
  • Branches: proximity service hubs

    While digital channels are playing an increasingly important role in informing customers about products and enabling them to make purchases, for many of them, the branch remains the local service hub. The Group’s 1,900 branches in 25 countries offer more than 4,000 immediately available products, 50,000 next-day products and technical and professional assistance. This network is constantly adapting to market changes.
    In the United States, 58 new branches were recently opened to meet the needs of the American market. In Europe, the branch offering was broadened to include new specialties such as multi-energy or smart devices.
    At the same time, in some countries, all branches either extended their opening hours or became automated. In Finland, Rexel’s branches are open 24/7, with a personal card that provides permanent access. In Sweden, certain branches are entirely automated: customers select and pay for their purchases using an application. In the other Swedish branches, customers skip the checkout line by using self-checkout.

Rexel Express, the new urban model

In 2020, Rexel launched a totally innovative service model in Saint-Ouen, just outside Paris, which makes the customer experience unique, the goal being to provide constantly greater flexibility in order fulfillment.
This innovative service comprises several entities: a digital branch equipped with digital tools and showrooms and an automated platform providing access to the largest electrical and HVAC supply inventory in Île-de-France with over 20,000 SKUs available immediately on-site. Customers can retrieve their orders at pickup points such as a branch or a locker located in parking lots in central Paris, thanks to a partnership with Indigo.
“This new innovative initiative completes our service offering and strengthens our network in Île-de-France. It saves time and provides our customers with their orders as close to their worksites as possible, as quickly as possible,” says Thomas Moreau, CEO of Rexel France.
The convergence of a last-generation logistics tools, technical advice from on-site experts, extended opening hours and lockers both on-site and off-site available 24/7 significantly improves the local customer offering.

3 questions for Thomas Moreau, CEO of Rexel France, about Rexel Express

What are Rexel's key strengths?

Speaking of innovation, in 2020 Rexel launched Rexel Express, an unprecedented urban services center. What are its customer advantages?

An environmentally-responsible approach is a major expectation among professionals and their end customers. How does Rexel France meet this expectation?

The Supplier Portal, a data analytics service for suppliers

Using a survey conducted in 2019 among its strategic suppliers, Rexel developed an innovative tool that relies on the Group’s data analysis expertise. The Supplier Portal offers them a data analytics service enabling them to evaluate their performance by customer typology, product, or transactional channel and according to a benchmark index. “We began by designing a common application for Rexel 3S and Rexel France that we are in the process of tailoring to other countries.” explains Jean-Michel Ochs, Group Digital Applications Director. The Supplier Portal is part of Rexel’s service development strategy. It is also a marker of the transformation of the Group’s supplier relations. “We work hand-in-hand with our suppliers to accelerate the digitization of our relationship. The Supplier Portal is a concrete example of this,” concludes Jean-Michel Ochs.

Tailored solutions for large projects

Rexel’s inventory management expertise lies in the physical organization of the warehouse, restocking procedures, reporting development, obsolescence analysis and recommendations on maximal and minimal inventory levels.
Cost control and the adequacy of materials on a major worksite depend in large part on properly anticipating and perfectly executing inventory. Rexel is involved in the early stages of the project, often starting with the request for proposal. Partnerships built with the largest manufacturers around the world are the key to managing sourcing and purchase prices.
The materials must also comply with customers’ specific imperatives in terms of safety, quality and regulations. Procurement reliability and adherence to schedule are also decisive factors.
In addition to a vertical approach by market segment, large projects necessitate adaptation to customers’ worksite conditions and activity in every region of the world. Within the Group, specialized teams offer tailored services. Rexel thus relies on banners with deep vertical expertise, such as Capitol Light in the United States, which is specialized in lighting for hotels, restaurants, and retail store chains.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Optimizing costs and simplifying worksite management go hand in hand. The Group’s sourcing capacities, combined with order fulfillment solutions, make it possible to optimize the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), including the indirect costs associated with billing, delivery, and inventory management, which can more than double the price of a product.

4 solutions to optimize worksite supply

  • Delivery globalization

    Eliminates the costs generated by multiple deliveries. For customers, it is also a way of sizing their orders more accurately, and avoiding on-site inventory storage.

  • Managing stocks on behalf of the customer

    Streamlines and optimizes worksite management, especially with regards to spare parts for which indirect costs are high.

  • Installing a container at a worksite

    Having an on-site logistics base for equipment delivery. Supplied on a just-in-time basis by Rexel's logistics center or branch, it avoids risks of supply shortages thanks to guaranteed deliveries. This solution can include an on-site expert salesperson.

  • Kitting

    Better allocate resources and optimize supply. Deliveries of pre-assembled equipment, labeled by installation zone, avoid the need for customers to create inventory and reduce the time and costs related to product handling.

3 questions for Grégoire Morineaux, Industrial Market Director at Rexel France

What are Rexel's strengths on the industrial market?

What were your major projects this year?

How do you envision the market's recovery?

Industrial automation

In China, where the Group is particularly well positioned in the industrial automation market, Rexel China has developed an IMC (Industry Management & Control) solution, which retrieves, analyzes, and displays all of the data used to measure and control factory performance. Its main advantage lies in its interoperability: it works with all automation equipment suppliers as long as the equipment has sensors and detectors.
More recently, Rexel China took a further step with the development of an eIMC, a more powerful IMC platform that also offers integrated energy management solutions available autonomously and in the Cloud. Among its most recent users is one of the world leaders in optical fiber manufacturing, which uses eIMC abilities in remote monitoring, equipment, maintenance and optimized data processing and management via Edge Computing.

Constance Grisoni,
Data Solutions Manager

“Rexel wants to offer an individualized experience to each of its customers, in order for them to benefit from personalized recommendations. This is possible thanks to data from their profiles and their contacts with all of the Group's distribution channels.”

Personalized high value-added services

Rexel’s specialized entities – subsidiaries or expert services – contribute their deep market knowledge to the overall strength of the Group, present in 25 countries, in order to offer a specialized, comprehensive range of products, especially in the sector of industrial engines and automation, meeting even the strictest standards; tailored logistics solutions, from procurement to inventory management, which ensure a lower total cost of procurement; and strong expertise and adapted supplies in terms of energy management to optimize energy efficiency.
In order to provide its customers with a personalized response, Rexel launched the transformation of its model in order to become a benchmark company in the use of data. Installation management solutions are now structured by market segment to better meet the specific needs and expectations of each customer, in partnership with manufacturers.

Esabora, a digital solution for installers

This software suite offers installers step-by-step accompaniment in the development of their projects.
Sales assistance: a tablet application (Vesta) helps the installer during the energy audit phase, compares the solutions available in terms of price and simulates their results. A 3D video presents the installation and its operation to customers.
Technical expertise: an installation design tool, both intuitive and intelligent, creates an installation layout that is clear and in compliance with current standards. Created from scanned images and Autocad files, it requires no CAD expertise and transforms into a cost estimate in a few clicks.
Cost consultation: with more than 800,000 SKUs in a built-in catalogue.
Administrative assistance: with the help of a single program to manage all of the company’s activities.

Efficient digital tools

Webshops benefit first from advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data. Predictive models founded on algorithms fed by high-quality data make it possible to both enrich the customer experience and optimize Rexel’s sales. Simultaneously, also thanks to AI in association with alert systems created during the pandemic, changes in customer lifecycles are better identified and anticipated. Salespeople can thus give them advice according to their business variations in order to help reduce attrition (or “churn”) rates and increase the conversion rate of webshops.
Customer data collection, completed by external data and included in verification algorithms, fosters increasingly precise customer segmentation. This approach enables a relevant analysis of purchase behavior, especially in terms of sensitivity to products, to channels, to modes of interaction, to price and to promotions.

Content personalization is part of a continual improvement approach to the customer experience, which has resulted in the creation of “residential customer,” “commercial customer,” and “industrial customer” pages, to which is added a general page for all visitors arriving for the first time as well as a page for employees. These personalized landing pages were designed to provide customers with a hub for their favorite shopping carts, frequent links and most recent orders or cost estimates.

Search engines have also been adapted according to customer profiles. The effectiveness of the product search and the filters for the search engine have been improved. The manufacturer product titles are labelled more clearly, the technical specifications are more explicit, and photos and videos show the characteristics of the products. The Data team constantly carries out this work to better manage products entering and exiting the catalogue.

The Track & Trace transportation management system, which enables customers to track all of their deliveries in real time, now benefits from push notifications sent to customers at each key step in the sales process: order confirmation, under preparation, shipped, available for pickup, etc. “During their online purchase, B2B customers have the same demands as B2C customers. The addition of push notifications is an excellent way to replicate this experience while optimizing back-office processes for our operators,” says Benoît Dagnet, Head of Digital EU/PAC at Rexel.

The Next Best Offer (NBO) tool recommends the right product to the right customer at the right time via the right channel (physical, telephone, email). For example, once per month and per customer, the NBO suggests products in line with the customer’s most recent orders.

Easy, with Rexel

Rexel Easy is a program launched in 2019 whose goal is to improve the customer experience thanks to the optimization of back office processes.

  • CREATE AN ACCOUNT IN 5 MINUTES, ONLINE AND OFFLINE

    The express account creation mechanism has led to a significant increase in new account creation (about 1,100 per month in France in 2020 vs 800 in early 2019).

  • DETERMINE DELIVERY TIMES

    Now possible for all products, including those not in stock. In France, the various logistics systems were connected to enable the site to display a reliable delivery time for products not in stock.

  • TRACK ORDERS

    In Europe, 65% of customer orders are now covered by Track & Trace in order to track order status online.

  • RETURN A PRODUCT ONLINE

    All it takes is to provide a reason for the return in order for it to be accepted by the sales teams. This streamlines and improves the reliability of the process, while enabling the customer to handle it autonomously.

A connected offering for new high-growth markets

The connected solutions developed by Rexel now represent a strategic dimension of its development, especially in the new high-growth markets of the energy transition.
The extension of green offerings, new mobilities, storage, self-consumption and energy management are becoming key issues in smart buildings, networks and infrastructures, in which Rexel is heavily investing.
Beyond installing equipment, raising customer awareness of energy management issues is a major goal for Rexel. The Group helps installers promote energy savings by providing them with energy audit tools and digital applications that enable them, via a tablet or smartphone, to monitor and manage their energy consumption by modifying their behavior thanks to simple information.
Smart home, energy monitoring, connected machines … the Internet of Things (IoT) covers many uses and business sectors. Rexel has been investing for years to stay ahead in this domain, anticipate changes and bring value to its customers.

Building Information Modeling (BIM)

BIM is a digital model, a prefiguration of a real building, containing all of the data relating to it and enabling the optimization of flows. Today, the BIM market is growing by 10 to 15% per year in France with an adoption rate of 50 to 60% by the key players in construction industry.
To foster the expansion of its customers’ skills in this market, Rexel accompanies them throughout their project by suggesting various tools at each step of the process: digital design assistance services, support with organizing and conducting the project, connected solutions for energy management, etc.
With minority equity participation since March 2021 in Trace Software International, a software publisher specializing in electrical design and the calculation of electrical and solar installations for construction in the commercial sector, Rexel is extending its range of solutions dedicated to this market.

3 questions for Christian Roche, IoT Business Unit Director, Rexel France

What is the state of the connected market today?

What are the advantages of Energeasy Connect on this market?

Faced with this simultaneous market and product evolution, how do you support your customers?

EConnect PRO, for a connected worksite

Dedicated to connected installation professionals, the EConnect PRO application has four key functions to strengthen the operational efficiency of connected worksites:
– Create new installations
– Enrich one’s hub and swiftly add new products
– Supervise all installed Energeasy Connect controllers
– Maintain worksites remotely.

  • >8,000
    charging stations managed by Freshmile.
    100,000
    roaming stations throughout Europe.
  • A global electrical mobility offering

    With an average autonomy of 140 kilometers, charging stations remain a central issue for electric vehicle users. Furthermore, needs vary according to use: while freeway infrastructures require high power, capable of charging a vehicle in one hour, commercial and residential buildings require less power.
    To accompany the various players in the installation of new equipment, Rexel offers full packages, scaled according to the number of vehicles to charge, equipped with traditional electrical power or solar power. Related user services further enhance these offerings, including geolocation, charge station reservation and online payment.

  • >50,000
    electric vehicle drivers concerned.
  • In 2020, Rexel acquired Freshmile Services, one of the foremost electric vehicle charging service providers in Europe. With this acquisition, Rexel has taken a strong position in the electric mobility market. The Group is strengthening the coherence of its global offering in France in this attractive sector including training, financing, and subsidies. Freshmile makes it possible to offer customers software solutions for managing, operating, maintaining, and selling electric vehicle charging stations, and to offer operating and support services for the owners and users of these stations.