When a club invites its own fans to create the next jersey, passion becomes a project, the project becomes a product and the product becomes an order. And every order comes with a question: when will it arrive, which size should I choose, how do I exchange it, why was my card declined. That was exactly the scenario of Manto da Nação, Flamengo’s fan-created jersey, and it was where Fan Talk operated throughout September 2026. Developed by Fun to Fan, the technology arm of End to End, Fan Talk is a fan service operation that brings together technology, specialists and a continuous improvement method.
In 30 days, the operation handled 9,155 service requests and contacts. More than a volume figure, the month offered a very clear picture of how efficient service becomes part of the relationship between a club and its fans. Below are the main lessons.
The context: a jersey created by the Nation, sold in short windows
Manto da Nação was launched by Flamengo in July 2026 as an initiative in which the fans themselves create, choose and wear the club’s new jersey. The process had three stages: submission of original designs, selection of ten finalists by a committee, and a popular vote. The winning design was to be produced as a limited, made-to-order edition.
This format is powerful for engagement, but it creates a specific operational challenge: demand does not arrive evenly throughout the month. It comes in waves, driven by every move in the sales calendar. A limited edition, with a short sales window and made-to-order production, concentrates questions, anxiety and urgency into a few days. For a club with a fan base the size of Flamengo’s, that means thousands of people looking for answers at the same time.
Demand follows the sales calendar, and service has to follow it too
On the inbound channel, the website webchat, there were 5,262 service requests in September, an average of 175 per day. But that average hides how the operation actually behaved.
In the first week, marked by a 20% discount and a pause in sales, the average reached 231 requests per day. In the second, with sales reopening, it dropped to 188. After sales closed, it went down to 155, and in the last week, already with a new sales push, it settled at 138 per day.
The lesson here is straightforward: in sports marketing, every commercial decision (a coupon, a pause, a reopening) creates a service peak. Clubs and brands that plan their sales calendar without planning their response capacity end up turning an engagement initiative into frustration. An AI-supported operation absorbs these peaks without response times collapsing, something an all-human team would hardly be able to scale at the same speed.
First-contact resolution: 89% of requests closed with no queue
Of the 5,262 inbound requests, 4,682 were resolved at the very first level of service, handled by an AI-powered virtual assistant trained on information about the product, the campaign and logistics. That represents a gross effectiveness of 89.0%, above the 85% target set for the operation.
There is also a second, more precise indicator, which we call real effectiveness. It starts from a simple split between two types of request. Level 1 requests are questions that can be answered with information, such as delivery times, sizing or jersey material. Level 2 requests require an action in the system, such as a cancellation, refund or account change, and are therefore routed to specialists by design, not by failure. Counting only Level 1 cases as avoidable transfers, real effectiveness for the month was 96.8%, also above the 95% target.
This distinction changes the way a club evaluates its service. The right question is not “how much was automated?” but “did each request quickly reach the person who could solve it?”.
This balance matches what Brazilian consumers expect. According to the CX Trends 2026 survey by Octadesk and Opinion Box, 63% of consumers consider it essential to be able to transfer to a human agent in order to rate an automated service positively. The same survey shows that 54% of Brazilians shop at night or in the early hours, outside traditional business hours. In other words, fans want answers at any time, but they also want to be sure they will reach a person when the problem calls for it.
Continuous improvement: the method behind the result
Perhaps the most important lesson of the month lies far from the volume figures. Throughout September, the team running the operation carried out 93 adjustments, each one triggered by a failure identified in real conversations:
- 58 additions to the knowledge base, when the information simply did not exist;
- 21 adjustments to the virtual assistant’s instructions, when the information existed but was not being applied correctly;
- 12 corrections to the knowledge base, when the information was out of date;
- 2 process improvements, with fixes to the website or the purchase flow.
This daily monitoring drove gross effectiveness from 83.0% in the first week to 95.3% in the last week of the month. In other words, the operation ended September far more efficient than it started, because there were people looking at every conversation and turning mistakes into learning.
For clubs and brands, the lesson is clear: no tool solves customer service on its own. What solves it is the combination of technology, deep knowledge of the product and the fan, and a monitoring routine that treats every conversation as data.
Outbound service: when the operation reaches out to the fan
Besides answering, Fan Talk also reached out to fans. Via WhatsApp, 3,893 customers were contacted across four sales and sales recovery actions, with 8.6% going on to talk with a specialist.
The breakdown by action reveals a lot about consumer behavior:
- Abandoned cart: 372 contacts, with 11.3% talking to a specialist;
- Purchase error: 1,671 contacts, with 6.6%;
- Cancelled orders: 1,593 contacts, with 3.4%;
- Address confirmation: 225 contacts, with 45.8%.
The gap between address confirmation and the other actions is the most revealing point. When the message solves a concrete problem for the fans themselves, making sure the jersey arrives at the right place, almost half of them reply and engage. When the message is more commercial in nature, engagement drops. It is not that WhatsApp works or doesn’t work: fans respond to what is useful to them.
And the channel matters. A Poli Digital survey released in 2026 shows that 64% of Brazilian consumers already buy through WhatsApp and that 73% prefer messaging over other ways of contacting companies. For clubs, this means the app is not just a support channel but a central part of the fan’s purchase journey.
Customer service is also brand
Manto da Nação shows, in practice, that fan engagement initiatives and customer service operations are the same conversation. A brilliant social media campaign can lose its value the moment a fan cannot find out where their order is.
A few points apply to any club, league or brand that sells to fans:
Plan service alongside the sales calendar. Every launch, pre-sale, coupon or reopening creates a predictable peak. Sizing your response capacity in advance keeps that peak from turning into complaints.
Measure efficiency by what each level should solve. Separating Level 1 and Level 2 requests gives a far more honest reading of what technology solves, what the human team solves and where the bottlenecks are.
Treat improvement as a routine, not a rollout. The gap between 83% and 95% effectiveness, within a single month, came from continuous monitoring of conversations.
Use outbound channels to be useful, not just to sell. Fans respond when a message solves something for them, and that usefulness is what builds trust for future sales.
In a market where fans expect from their club the same digital experience they get from major retail brands, customer service is no longer backstage. It is part of the brand, and every well-resolved conversation strengthens the bond that made the fan buy the jersey in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
What is Fan Talk? Fan Talk is a fan service operation created by Fun to Fan, the technology arm of End to End. It combines technology, human specialists and a continuous improvement method, working across inbound channels, such as website webchat, and outbound channels, such as WhatsApp.
Is Fan Talk a chatbot? No. The virtual assistant is one layer of the operation, responsible for quickly answering the most frequent questions. Cases that require analysis or action in the system, such as cancellations and refunds, go to specialists, and the whole process is monitored and adjusted daily by a dedicated team.
Does this model only work for football clubs? The model applies to any sports operation with demand peaks and a high volume of fans: clubs, leagues, events, sponsor brands and licensed merchandise e-commerce.
Launching a jersey, opening a pre-sale or putting a limited edition on sale? Before thinking about the campaign, it pays to think about who will answer the thousands of fans who arrive with it. Talk to the End to End team about Fan Talk and let’s design a service operation that lives up to your fan base.
