Decathlon enhances HR operations with Zendesk

Decathlon is a French company founded in 1976 in Lille, and today it is one of the largest sporting goods hubs in the world, present in more than 70 countries. The multi-specialist brand offers products for over 65 sports, catering to athletes of all levels and focusing on reducing its environmental impact. Guided by the purpose of moving people through the wonders of sport, Decathlon seeks to democratize access to sport and expand the social impact of sports practice.

In Brazil, with over 50 physical stores and 2,000 employees, the company had been focusing its efforts on making its Human Resources (HR) department more strategic and connected. The implementation of new solutions brought more clarity and agility, allowing HR to concentrate on initiatives that truly develop people and strengthen operations.

Interactions with employees previously occurred through multiple channels – email, chat, phone calls, and WhatsApp – without a central platform to organize tasks. With the new solutions, the team was able to better balance operational activities and strategic decisions, increasing their availability to focus on higher-impact initiatives.

Digital resources that optimize the employee experience

Given this scenario and after a thorough evaluation process, the Decathlon team in Brazil chose Zendesk, influenced by positive feedback from other large companies (and also by the use of the tool by the parent company in France).

The partnership with BCR.CX was crucial for the implementation and stood out for the expertise and efficiency of the team, which helped map the best processes and optimize the platform within Decathlon’s workflow. “The success of the Zendesk tool today within Decathlon is partly due to the BCR team for assisting us strategically, showing us all the possibilities we could execute, always with the employee in mind,” says Deyvid Leles, HR Manager at Decathlon Brazil.

The tool was implemented in just eight weeks, exceeding Decathlon’s expectations. The project prioritized offering a personalized, easy, and intuitive experience for the employee – from navigation to FAQ articles with simple and accessible language.

A robust Help Center was created, featuring a virtual agent and self-service portal, functioning as “channels of truth” for employees to find information about vacations, benefits, and other issues; intuitive videos were also developed to address frequently asked questions.

To achieve this, the HR team conducted training and capacity-building activities in the stores to ensure positive reception and use of the Zendesk solution. “We understood that Decathlon already had this employee-focused approach very well structured, and all that was missing was an information organization tool to transform the desires of HR and Decathlon as a whole into reality,” emphasizes Bruno Rodrigues, CEO and Founder of BCR.CX.

According to Leles, all this investment in Employee Experience has improved overall performance, placing the focus of operations where it should truly be: sales. “A positive experience and excellent service are reflected in the day-to-day operation. A happy employee is an employee who has quality support, and this is reflected in their daily productivity and, consequently, in the company’s business results,” he adds.

Strategic HR, satisfied employees, and mitigated risks

The adoption of the Zendesk platform generated a measurable impact for the Decathlon team in Brazil: approximately 60 percent of the operational part of the HR team was freed up, allowing the team to become more strategic.

Now, analysts have more time to directly contact employees, making calls or video calls to clarify practical questions or explain salary issues in detail. Informal hallway calls for questions have decreased significantly, directing employees to official channels and optimizing HR’s time.

Furthermore, according to Leles, the tool was fundamental in categorizing the priority of HR calls and ensuring they were answered accurately. Interaction between HR and Legal now occurs via calls and is recorded in the history, facilitating access to past opinions and decisions and providing greater control and security.

Another benefit was the creation of customer service dashboards, which offer clarity and a “visual management” of demands, allowing managers and store directors to monitor issues and act in a more proactive and preventive manner.

There was also an improvement in KPIs for response time, service level agreement (SLA) time, and satisfaction percentage of responses. Overall employee satisfaction, measured by global surveys, was also positively impacted.

“The great thing is that Decathlon understands this very well: when we say we’re going to improve the lives of our employees, in practice we’re going to improve the lives of our customers. And improving the lives of our customers means revenue. So, it’s a very easy ROI and calculation to make,” observes Rodrigues.

According to Leles, the arrival of Zendesk also reduced rework within the team – one of the biggest impacts observed in daily operations – and brought important improvements to communication, helping the team to be more strategic and have more assertive resolutions. “In practice, what changed was that HR became more strategic, providing the team with more time and capacity to act on strategic decisions and strengthen their seniority,” he says.

A future of AI, expansion, and innovation

The successful implementation in the HR and Legal departments has already opened doors for the expansion of Zendesk within Decathlon itself. The Customer Service team, for example, has already acquired and implemented the tool.

There is also a great ambition to expand the tool to the Americas and other countries, replicating Brazil’s successful model.

The next big step will be the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) to handle low- and medium-complexity requests, speeding up response times and offering more humanized interactions. “The expectation is that AI will bring even more agility. Decathlon and BCR.CX will continue building help articles and exploring tools like Zendesk QA to monitor the quality of service,” reinforces Rodrigues.

Decathlon demonstrates that investing in Employee Experience is fundamental to a company’s success, showing how the combination of a people-centric culture, the right technology, and specialized partners can transform HR into a strategic agent capable of driving both internal engagement and business growth.