From Telemarketing to Customer Experience: Repositioning a Contact Centre

What the French law changes for the outbound model#

Article 13 of the Law of 30 June 2025 rewrites Article L.223-1 of the French Consumer Code: telemarketing calls to a consumer are prohibited unless the consumer has given prior consent. That consent must be freely given, specific, informed, unambiguous and revocable; silence and pre-ticked boxes count for nothing. Decree No. 2026-662 of 23 July 2026 specifies that it must name the business and the purpose, that it is valid for no more than one year and that proof of it must be kept for at least three years. The burden of proof lies with the business.

Two points directly concern Moroccan centres. First, the text targets the business that calls "directly or through a third party acting on its behalf": outsourcing the calls to Morocco does not shift the liability, and your client will ask you for guarantees. Second, exceptions remain, notably for calls relating to an existing contract. Our guide on the French telemarketing law details these rules, and the one on proof of consent sets out what a centre must be able to show.

A sector with national stakes#

According to figures presented by Minister Delegate Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni on 27 January 2026 and reported in the press, offshoring accounted at the end of 2024 for around 148,500 jobs, more than 1,000 companies and MAD 26.22 billion in exports. The stated targets for 2030 are MAD 40 billion in exports and 270,000 jobs.

In response to the French reform, Employment Minister Younes Sekkouri estimated, in a written answer to a parliamentary question reported in March 2026, that 40,000 to 50,000 jobs were directly threatened. These figures explain the urgency: this is not about adjusting a script, but about changing the nature of what the centre sells.

The activities that create value#

Multilingual capability is a real differentiator: the same floor can serve customers in French, Modern Standard Arabic, Darija and English, which appeals to brands that target the North African diaspora in Europe or several markets at once. It must be proven by per-agent language assessments, not asserted in a brochure.

Rethinking the offer#

A telemarketing centre sells agent time and call volumes. A customer experience centre sells results: a problem solved, a customer retained, a complaint that does not come back. Three changes follow:

1. The contract moves from volume commitments to outcome commitments, alongside traditional service levels.
2. Management abandons the race for the shortest call duration in favour of quality indicators that measure resolution, effort and repeat contacts.
3. The relationship with the client becomes a collaboration: the centre reports the causes of calls and proposes fixes, as described in our approach to reducing churn.

The skills to develop#

• Business expertise: a complex-support agent knows the client's products, contracts and procedures.
• Professional writing in French and English, and clear writing in Arabic for the markets concerned.
• AI supervision: knowing when to take over from a conversational agent and how to correct a generated answer. The AI Act already requires deployers to take AI literacy measures for their staff.
• Analysis: supervisors able to read contact reasons, spot a recurring cause and document it.
• Everyday compliance: informing callers, call recording, consent, sensitive data.

AI: an accelerator, with conditions#

AI makes it possible to handle more simple requests and to equip agents on complex cases. It also creates obligations. Since 2 August 2026, a customer talking to a chatbot or voicebot must be told so, unless it is obvious; see the Article 50 transparency obligation. Since 2 February 2025, inferring employees' emotions from their voice or face has been prohibited; see what the AI Act prohibits regarding emotion analysis in call centres. The broader risks are set out in our guide on AI in customer service.

Selling the repositioning to a European client#

A European client buys value and security. Prepare:

• A ready-to-use evidence file, to answer the security and compliance questionnaire it will send.
• A GDPR-compliant contractual framework for data: a processing contract and standard contractual clauses, since Morocco has no adequacy decision. See the guide on the Moroccan processor of a European client.
• A proposal quantified in outcomes, drawn from a limited pilot, with indicators defined before it starts.
• A map of AI uses: tools, role under the AI Act, information given to customers, human oversight.

A five-step roadmap#

1. Map the current portfolio: the share of outbound cold calling, the share of calls relating to an existing contract, the share of inbound.
2. Choose two or three target activities based on existing skills and the clients you can reach.
3. Train a pilot floor and define its quality indicators.
4. Build the evidence room and the contractual framework for data.
5. Measure the pilot over three months, then expand activity by activity.