Funlab is a leader of competitive socialising experiences. It owns and operates brands Strike Bowling, Holey Moley, Archie Brothers, Hijinx Hotel, B. Lucky & Sons, and La Di Darts.
Salesforce connects sales, service, marketing, and venue teams on one platform, enabling them to work more efficiently and grow guest relationships. With Agentforce Marketing, Funlab can also personalise every moment to maximise conversion and guest lifetime value.
Siloed channels and data limited efficiency and opportunities to grow guest engagement.
Funlab’s first brand and venue, Strike Bowling, launched twenty-two years ago in Melbourne. The company has since expanded to over 80 locations across Australia, New Zealand and the USA and has big ambitions for continued growth.
To deliver on its goals, the company had to digitally transform. Siloed channels and data created inefficiencies and limited Funlab’s ability to personalise communication and experiences. For example, when sending out emails for Valentine’s Day or a special event, the team had to manually create separate emails for each of its brands and different segments, resulting in countless more hours spent on email production.
Additionally, guest-facing team members lacked visibility into guests’ previous interactions or bookings, making it difficult to personalise their experience.
Without a 360-degree view of guests, Funlab also lacked the depth of insight needed to deepen relationships.
With all our teams united on Salesforce and accessing the same data, we can understand our guests better and operate more efficiently.
Ben WildChief Technology Officer, Funlab
Salesforce connects data and teams on one platform to drive automated, consistent guest experiences.
Funlab’s transformation has focused on optimising the total experience of its brand, making it seamless for guests and employees.
Sales, service, and marketing, as well as teams within Funlab’s venues, are now connected on Salesforce with a shared 360-degree view of guests. This view is enriched by the integration of Salesforce with Funlab’s booking platform.
Funlab has streamlined the booking process to support the growth of its functions category and provide guests with a seamless, consistent experience, whether they book online or over the phone.
Booking data now flows into Agentforce Sales, providing sales, service, and venue teams with a centralised view of functions to which they can add any notes or guest requests. Agentforce Sales also triggers automated communications such as booking confirmations and reminders.
The streamlined processes and enhancements to online booking have improved the guest experience and made managing functions much more scalable, helping Funlab drive continued growth in this area. Additionally, 50% of guests are now booking online, contributing to a 25% deflection in calls.
What I love about Agentforce is that it works with our existing tech stack and data to create efficiencies and a better experience for our staff.
Ben WildChief Technology Officer, Funlab
Agentforce Marketing helps Funlab personalise experiences to grow lasting relationships.
The value of Funlab’s transformation has been most visible in marketing. The team now has a solid data foundation to better understand guests and personalise their experiences. This includes booking and targeting data that previously had to be uploaded manually.
Funlab has maximised the value of this data by using Agentforce Marketing to build automated guest lifecycle journeys across all its brands and to accelerate engagement with cross-brand and retention strategies.
Emails and campaigns are also more effective, with Marketing Analytics providing real-time engagement data to optimise performance.
Marketing efficiency has improved, too, with features like dynamic content that allow the team to quickly tailor emails for each segment, brand, and region.
Results include 140% year-on-year growth in email performance, contributing to 30% increase in active guests and a 28% average increase in guest lifetime value. Funlab has also reduced manual processes by 50%.
Next, Funlab plans to leverage its data to build deeper customer loyalty. This will include building a value proposition that makes people excited to be part of the Funlab family.
Agentforce Service opens up new opportunities to boost engagement and productivity.
Funlab continues to transform, bringing marketing, sales and service teams under one umbrella to deliver an even more connected guest experience. Reporting and insights enabled by Salesforce Contact Centre with Amazon Connect have informed significant operating and process changes. These, in turn, have helped optimise the volume and quality of guest interactions.
Funlab plans to build on these improvements by introducing features like Next Best Action, which will help the team personalise engagement using AI-generated offers and actions. The company is also excited about the possibilities enabled by Agentforce Voice and the efficiencies that could be achieved by allowing guests to interact with an AI agent to make bookings and payments.
With operational efficiencies gained from Salesforce, we’ve driven extraordinary growth over the last four years without increasing headcount.
Ben WildChief Technology Officer, Funlab
Funlab's transformation was led with a strong focus on planning, building trust, and change management. The company viewed the project as a business transformation, not just a technology implementation, recognising that true change needed to be embraced by the entire organisation.
Funlab did not attempt to solve every problem at once. Instead, they focused on a small, achievable piece: improving the booking experience. This generated immediate results and built trust internally, paving the way for the larger transformation.
