IKEA: Meet Sven, conversational AI for support

A student consulting project for IKEA, through The Knowledge Society, on fixing slow and inconsistent customer support.

Role Student consultant, team of six
Period Dec 2024 to Jan 2025
Result Semi-finalist
Deck Read the full deck (PDF, 19 slides, 3.6 MB) →

When we looked, IKEA averaged 1.5 stars on Trustpilot across nearly 26,000 reviews, and many of the complaints were about customer service: long waits, conflicting answers and repeated calls.

Our team of six recommended Sven, a voice assistant that answers the support line directly, with no text message link or website to visit first. Sven handles routine questions about orders, deliveries, returns and assembly. Anything it cannot solve goes to a human agent with a summary, so the customer does not have to explain the problem twice.

Numbers

70% of routine calls resolved by Sven
Under 5 s target first response
$256M to $512M modelled annual savings

These figures are our team's estimates from public sources, not IKEA's own numbers.

From the deck

Title slide: A New Approach to Support Through Conversational AI, Meet Sven, with the Knowledge Society, IKEA and Sven logos. — The proposal in one slide.

Slide spelling out the name Sven. Smart: uses AI to understand customer questions. Voice-Enabled: interacts naturally through voice. Navigator: guides customers step by step through order tracking, returns or assembly. A cartoon face with glasses says Hi, I'm Sven! — What Sven stands for.

Process diagram. A customer calls about product inquiries, assembly, delivery or returns and reaches Sven. Sven answers 70% of calls itself. The 30% it cannot handle are transferred to human agents without the customer having to re-explain the issue. — How a call moves through Sven.

Have a project like this? Email me at me [at] gabrieldalton.com