A record-breaking boss. In the unpublished issue of Incognito boss broadcast this Monday, January 16, 2023 on M6, Frédéric Murat, co-founder of Coursier.fr, achieved the feat of being unmasked by one of his employees after only a few minutes and this, from his first immersion. At the head ofa company with 800 couriers spread over 8 delivery sites from Lille to Toulouse via Aix-en-Provence, Frédéric Murat takes stock of this experience unlike any other with Tele-Leisure.
“Our other objective was to have visibility in order to be able to recruit”
Tele-Leisure : What made you want to take part in Incognito boss ?
Frederic Murat: Coming out of the first confinement, we changed the way we work. For 20 years, we were exclusively in Paris where we worked with the biggest luxury and fashion companies. All of these stores closed during this period. We have therefore studied other solutions for keep our employees working and we saw that e-commerce and food delivery were on the front line. We then decided to change the offer and to address these new customers who trusted us. From a Parisian player, we have become a national player by multiplying by three the number of employees. Turnover has also tripled.
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How did you react when the production of the show contacted you?
We saw this as an opportunity to check whether what worked in Paris was also well implemented in the provinces. Our other objective was to have visibility in order to be able to recruit. Today, the problem of our profession is not to find customersbut couriers to be able to deliver the last mile.
Did you know Incognito boss before trying the experiment?
Who doesn’t know this show? In terms of audience and visibility, this is something important for the companies that participate. But it can be a double-edged sword, with the observation of many dysfunctions or on the contrary the satisfaction of what we see incognito on the ground.
When you are a leader, you must surely fear that the filming will reveal dysfunctions…
No. Honestly, our fear was rather that our customers wouldn’t want to see their brands on the air.
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“I was in shorts and I injured myself taking the bike out of the warehouse”
One of the standout sequences of the number is the one where we see you dropping a cake that you are supposed to deliver. Isn’t this a risk for the image of Coursiers.fr?
I do not think so. It’s the cake that I’m carrying myself, which isn’t used to it, which arrives damaged, while the other cake arrives at its destination. In the sequence, we explain to the courier that he made a mistake and that we usually provide refrigerated vehicles to transport this kind of goods. This is a procedural error.
How long did the filming last?
About ten days in October. There were between two and three days of shooting in a row, followed by a break of one or two days.
Dawid exposed you because you tattooed your company logo on your thigh. Didn’t you lack caution?
I hadn’t seen that he had noticed my tattoo. In 25 years, the company logo has changed three times and I have all three versions of the logo tattooed, from first to last, on the body. But they don’t see each other normally. That day I was in shorts and injured myself taking the bike out of storage. I tore off a piece of skin. It was bleeding. To prevent it from running over my shorts, I pulled them up. And that’s where the employee saw the Coursiers.fr logo.
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“The show is not here to give raises or bonuses”
In Incognito boss, most employees obtain a promotion after the immersion of their leader. Does this create jealousies internally?
Beware, I’ve seen shows where there was more cropping than promotions. The show is not there to give raises or bonuses but to have an internal vision and to congratulate or reframe. In the case of tonight’s show, half of the participants had a promotion. We have been carrying out internal promotion work for 25 years. Within the company, we encourage employees who wish to move up to higher positions to do so.
Do you have a say in the editing of Incognito boss ?
What convinced us to do the show was that we had the opportunity to chat with Endemol (company that produces Incognito bosseditor’s note) during assembly. We have participated in other shows in the past like Exclusive inquiry (magazine broadcast on Sunday evening on M6, editor’s note) and there they were more of a show show where the sensational, the speed, the accidents… were sought. We didn’t want to go into that at all. I called the old bosses who participated in the show to have their feelings on the shooting and the final rendering. I spoke to three of them. They were all super reassuring and they told me they were ready to do it again Incognito boss.
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If, in the future, a boss calls you in turn to ask you if you advise him to participate in Incognito bosswould you say yes to him?
I will ask him to give me his place because I would like to do the show again! (laughs)
