Paris 2024 Games: the digital experience for spectators 

18 million app downloads, 160 million website visits, 2 billion page views, 450,000 customer service requests... Throughout the Paris 2024 Games, Paris 2024 teams are gearing up to make the spectator experience as easy as possible, from the screen to the competition venue.

A century of firsts

France, Olympism and innovation share a long history.

After welcoming the first female athletes in history in 1900, inventing the Village concept and introducing the Olympic motto (“Faster, higher, stronger”) in 1924, broadcasting the first Games in color and creating the first mascot in 1968, bringing the Olympic and Paralympic Games together for the first time in 1992, the organization of the Games in France has enabled Paris 2024 to bring its share of innovations.

A 100% digital experience

Paris 2024, in collaboration with the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees and the Île-de-France transport authority, Île-de-France Mobilités, has made available three consumer applications for a total spectator experience.

The Tickets application

100% dematerialized tickets, with a dedicated application for reselling or transferring tickets.

The official application

In addition to the famous results calendar and medal table, the official app provides news and information about Paris 2024 (its organization, commitments, identity, etc.), as well as a “My Events” section to complete the in-stadium experience: important information, transport itinerary, interactive map of the competition site, customer service chatbots and explanations of the rules, sports news, etc. For Lyès Jmili Despaquis, Senior Digital Project Manager, “The challenge was to provide a comprehensive app that strikes the perfect balance between sports news and spectator services”.

The Transport Public app

To get around the Paris region and to the competition venues, the Transport Public app offers route planning, personalized traffic information and the purchase of paperless tickets.

A glimpse of the spectator experience in the app

Digital communication designed for spectators

Digital communication becomes more and more essential with each edition of the Games. At Paris 2024, it played an essential role in keeping spectators informed, from the moment they bought their ticket to the day after their session. More than 100 automated email, SMS and push paths were set up to prepare spectators for their arrival, their travel to the competition venues, or to manage unforeseen weather or transport issues. “We worked to anticipate the unexpected”, sums up Julien Boudet, CRM (Customer relationship management) project manager.

In all, 9 million emails, 7 million SMS messages and 5 million push notifications were sent out during the Olympic fortnight. This content was personalized to the individual according to their ownership of the app, the transport plan for their session, the weather in real time, or information from the venues on the day.

Engagement programs around sport or the French Olympic and Paralympic team were also set up to engage the most fervent supporters in a memorable personalized experience.

An overview of emailing paths

Any questions?

When does the flame pass through Brest? Who is Tony Estanguet? Can I bring my dog?

So many questions that required a technical, human and organizational response. Here again, we had to be present on all fronts via a variety of communication channels: the chatbot and social networks, but also a channel for the deaf and hearing-impaired and a telephone number.

The Contact Center took up this challenge to bring the right information to every enquirer, whatever their level of digital appetence. Its teams used semantic analysis to understand user expectations and enrich the knowledge base. The latter has been made available as open data, so that all stakeholders in the organization of the Games can disseminate clear, common information.

Although the exhaustiveness of information is a major challenge for any customer service department, 90% of the 450,000 requests received during the Olympic period were handled on a “self-care” basis, i.e. without the need for a human advisor. However, the remaining 10% were handled by telephone. “This is crucial”, explains Barbara Maillet, Contact Center Manager, ”The challenge is generally to reassure the person. For this, the telephone remains the key to customer service.”

Digital innovations created a rich multi-channel spectator experience. Paris 2024's digital teams worked to make these Games more connected, more interactive, and more sustainable, by “producing and delivering the right message to the right person, at the right time” as their director, Carole Colin Kjaer, sums it up. These solutions have enabled spectators around the world to access clear information in real time, wherever they are and whoever they are.