FC Bayern Munich becomes the first professional sports club in Germany to meet the requirements of the new TÜV Rheinland standard for Service Quality in Sport

COLOGNE, 1-6-2015 — /EuropaWire/ — FC Bayern Munich has become the first professional sports club in Germany to meet the requirements of the new TÜV Rheinland standard for “Certified Service Quality – Sport.” The standard developed by TÜV Rheinland is tailored specifically to the needs of sport. The goal is to increase the service quality of sports clubs, thereby making a significant contribution toward ensuring a positive experience for spectators as well as financial success. Dr. Michael Fübi, CEO of TÜV Rheinland AG, presented the first certificate to Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Chairman of the Executive Board of FC Bayern München AG.

The new TÜV Rheinland “Certified Service Quality – Sport” standard provides national and international sports clubs with a solid foundation for establishing high-quality services at their events and improving them in the long term. Ticket sales and admission, as well as spectator areas in the stands and the VIP area, play just as important a role in service quality as sanitary facilities and parking. The certification also encompasses the review of safety aspects, such as the club’s emergency management provisions.

“Particularly in the field of professional sport, high service quality is essential. Clubs can exert a positive influence on the game experience and the behavior of their fans while benefiting from a boost to their reputation at the same time,” explains Michael Weppler, Executive Vice President of Systems at TÜV Rheinland.

FC Bayern Munich is the first soccer club to have been successfully inspected and certified to this standard by TÜV Rheinland. To achieve this, the company underwent an extensive inspection process incorporating both secret inspections on game days and a comprehensive audit with all those responsible. All service areas of the sports club fell under the keen eye of the TÜV Rheinland auditors, including the infrastructure inside and outside the Allianz Arena in Munich, the admission systems, the stands, the facilities and services in the VIP lounges and the full extent of the catering and sanitary facilities.

For a positive all-round experience for spectators, it is essential for the service quality to be up to scratch at all points of contact between visitors and the sports club. The standard ensures that quality targets and customer expectations are systematically met and surpassed. For this purpose, the TÜV Rheinland auditors conducted various processes to inspect the services of FC Bayern Munich.

This also included a spectator survey of several thousand visitors to the stadium, which provided valuable input with regard to the quality on offer at the various points of service. How was the ticket sales process? What form did admission to the Arena take and what was the standard of the catering on offer, both in the stands and in boxes and the VIP area? These were just a few of the questions included in the survey.

This was followed by the two-part inspection process. As part of a “mystery check,” a TÜV Rheinland expert visited the Allianz Arena in the guise of a normal spectator and assessed the services from a visitor’s perspective. The expert followed and inspected the service routes, taking into account such aspects as ticket sales, the traffic situation at the Arena, hygiene in the bathrooms, the quality of the food, security checks and the arrangements for departure after the game.

The final audit process was ultimately concerned with organizational matters and the processes needed to provide the best possible service. In this respect, the auditors checked the extent to which the sports club had defined service standards and how these were communicated and safeguarded. Responsibilities for certain processes and qualification and further training of employees also played a key role. Specific examples include the service philosophy, qualification of employees, complaints management, customer focus, a personal security concept for guests of state and regulations regarding compliance.

At the end of an inspection process that took several days, FC Bayern Munich successfully completed the entire certification process and received the “Certified Service Quality – Professional Clubs” certificate from TÜV Rheinland.

To ensure that services remain at an exceptional level, the experts from TÜV Rheinland will perform regular mystery checks and inspections. This demonstrates that the standard is designed not merely to maintain the status quo, but to continue to increase quality with a view to giving visitors a positive overall experience on a permanent basis.

Fundamental research – including surveys and the analysis of data for the benchmark with the entire league and for certification – was performed by SLC Management GmbH from Nuremberg, the leading company for market and opinion research as well as quality management and customer satisfaction in Germany’s Bundesliga soccer league.

To find out more about the TÜV Rheinland “Certified Service Quality – Sport” standard online, visit www.tuv.com/servicequalitaet-sport (only in german language).

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FC Bayern Munich becomes the first professional sports club in Germany to meet the requirements of the new TÜV Rheinland standard for Service Quality in Sport Copyright: Getty Images