Wembley Stadium to utilise WorldHost for the Olympic Games
27 Jul 2012
Wembley Stadium, home venue of the England national football team and second largest stadium in Europe, has used the WorldHost Principles of Customer Service training programme to prepare its frontline staff ahead of hosting the Olympic football finals this summer.
Owned by The Football Association (The FA) Wembley Stadium is a world-class venue hosting both domestic and international sporting events, as well as major music concerts. With a capacity of 90,000, event days are extremely busy with staff being required to help a huge variety of customers with a diverse range of needs.
Marie Head, Event Services Manager at Wembley, is one of eight in-house trainers qualified to deliver the WorldHost Principles of Customer Service training to stadium staff. Marie says, “I work in the Bobby Moore Club here at Wembley, which is for our VIP customers, so the staff I train come from our hospitality teams. Although we have always provided them with customer service training, the WorldHost training gives us a new standard and way to train staff in techniques to go above and beyond their job role and make sure the Wembley experience really stands out to visitors.”
Peter Swordy, Head of the Centre of Excellence at Wembley, views the training as integral to ensuring the stadium is able to make the most of hosting the Olympic football finals. He says, “This is a real business opportunity for us, many representatives from the international sporting world will be experiencing our stadium for the first time, so our service levels will need to be at their absolute best in order to showcase our venue as one of the elite stadia in the world.”
Wembley Stadium is using all four modules of the WorldHost Principles of Customer Service training programme to equip staff for every type of customer. Marie comments, “We regularly accommodate customers from all over the world as well as people with a range of disabilities, from mobility considerations to visual and hearing impairments, so the specialised WorldHost modules that give staff the skills and techniques to manage these scenarios confidently, are really important to us.”
Peter Swordy says, “To date we have trained 150 steward managers, 40 client services staff, 100 hosts and hostesses and 40 access assistance staff. We are holding regular training sessions each month so by the summer we aim to have trained all 1,500 of our in-house hospitality staff and event day staff. We want everyone representing our stadium, and our country, at their very best for the event of a lifetime.”
The WorldHost customer service programme has received co-investment from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills through the Employer Investment Fund.
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