For Fnac Darty, the challenge is also to maintain a high level of reachability, including during peak activity periods, while directing simple requests toward autonomous journeys and enabling advisors to focus on more complex, higher-value situations.
The group must therefore balance customer experience excellence, operational performance, and sustainable control of processing costs.
Two brands, two customer use cases, one shared commitment to performance
Customer behaviors differ significantly between the two brands, with expectations and contact habits specific to each environment.
At Darty, the phone remains the preferred channel, with 75% of requests still handled through voice. This strong reliance on calls is largely explained by the nature of inquiries, which are often related to after-sales service, technical support, delivery, or assistance with everyday household equipment.
At Fnac, usage is more evenly balanced between phone and digital channels. Customers are more likely to use online journeys to track an order, obtain quick information, or contact the brand through conversational channels.
This diversity of behaviors requires an organization capable of intelligently orchestrating all customer touchpoints. For Fnac Darty, the challenge is therefore to direct each request to the most relevant channel based on the context, the nature of the need, the level of urgency, customer preferences, and team availability, in order to combine a seamless experience, operational efficiency, and service quality.
Historically, Fnac Darty built its customer service ecosystem around a best-of-breed approach, selecting the most effective solutions for each use case. This strategy allows the group to rely on recognized tools such as Odigo for voice management and Alcméon for interactions via WhatsApp and Messenger. This ecosystem also includes customer portals, email journeys, online forms, and various internal business tools.
With this setup, each channel benefits from a high level of functional expertise and tools tailored to its specific requirements. It effectively supports the wide range of operational needs of a group of this scale.
However, when interactions multiply across several touchpoints, this model can reveal its limitations. A customer may begin their journey by phone, continue on a digital channel, and then return to an advisor a few hours later. Without continuity between systems, the experience becomes more fragmented, information can be lost, repetition increases, and overall customer experience management becomes more complex.
Fnac Darty was therefore looking for a solution capable of connecting these environments, reconciling data from each channel, and streamlining transitions between voice and digital. The objective was to move from a combination of high-performing standalone channels to a truly omnichannel experience that is consistent and seamless.
To efficiently orchestrate contact journeys, the solutions deployed at Fnac Darty rely on three complementary stages covering the entire customer journey, from first contact to resolution.
The first stage concerns entry into the interaction. At Darty, when a customer contacts customer service by phone, DialOnce’s visual IVR is positioned at the start of the voice journey and can offer an immediate digital alternative by sending an SMS containing a link to an online journey. This system helps redirect certain requests toward self-service solutions and reduces phone waiting times.
At Fnac Spain, the omnichannel AI agent is deployed through the website, following a similar logic aimed at guiding customers toward the most appropriate resolution path.
The second stage is based on intent understanding. The omnichannel AI agent analyzes requests through a combination of NLU, generative AI, real-time contextual data, and business rules. This approach makes it possible to accurately identify the reason for contact and determine the best next step.
The third stage concerns resolution. Depending on the situation, customers can be directed toward a self-service answer, a customer portal, an appropriate digital channel, or a human advisor. When advisor intervention is required, the context already collected is automatically transferred to simplify handling.
This complementarity between the visual IVR and the omnichannel AI agent enables Fnac Darty to streamline journeys, expand selfcare, improve accessibility, and optimize the overall efficiency of customer service.
To explore in greater detail the insights shared by Fnac Darty and the initiatives implemented to transform its customer relationship strategy, watch the replay of the masterclass below.
> Watch the replay (French version)