UEFA is advertising new positions within its ticketing team – and Ticketing Sales and Customer Relations Manager Stefan Reubelt discusses both the vacancies and the organisational challenges ahead, not least UEFA EURO 2020.
What makes working at UEFA, and within ticketing, a special proposition?
If you are reading this article, you are probably already fascinated by the idea of working for UEFA. If you have worked in ticketing, you know the unique atmosphere in our field. However, if you have not worked in ticketing but are interested, please continue reading. Nobody in our team studied ticketing – ticketing is diverse, somewhere you find connections to all aspects of any other business industry. It’s always challenging and seeing a packed stadium is more rewarding than anything.
Tell us a bit more about your team and what new staff can expect.
We gathered a strong team to deliver an extremely successful ticketing project for UEFA EURO 2016 and now we are working on the next step – bringing EURO 2020 to 12 different countries and getting our system ready for this. Besides the operational challenges we are also trying to keep up-to-date with technical developments.
What were the highlights of EURO 2016 from your perspective?
The full stadiums and fans creating a unique atmosphere! Behind the scenes it is really hard work making sure no seat remains empty. Everybody remembers the Icelandic, Northern Irish and Welsh fans, but the atmosphere was the result of a strategy of trying to maximise the number of tickets going directly to fans. For us there was no better reward than hearing “Will Grigg’s on fire” or the Icelandic clap; evidence we had managed to get as many tickets as possible to true supporters.
Can we expect anything different in 2020?
The new format with 12 venues in 12 different countries will of course bring a lot of new challenges, but also a lot of new opportunities. While in the past a lot of tickets were bought by the football fans living in the host country, in 2020 more football fans across the whole European continent will have the chance to see the tournament live in the stadia. For us, it means that we cannot simply replicate what we did in 2016, but we will bring our system and processes to another level, and add a little bit of creativity. There are definitely exciting times ahead.
Stefan, can you give an overview of the positions and describe the qualities needed for these roles?
The Customer Service Operations Manager will oversee the customer service operation supporting all fans that purchase tickets through our website. He/she will ensure fans are always informed of the best ways to get tickets, and that we are here to answer questions. This means sourcing and managing the right service providers, but also coordinating the internal customer service team. Since we are selling tickets online, our customer service will also be online. The ideal candidate may have managed the customer service operation for a company with large-scale e-commerce operations.
The Online Sales Promotion Manager will make sure fans worldwide know they can get tickets for UEFA EURO 2020. Obviously we expect huge demand for tickets, but we want to reach all fans, even the ones not constantly checking UEFA.com for updates. We need a creative person who can target the right fans through the right online marketing tools. The ideal candidate is a hands-on person who has managed large online marketing campaigns and can bring specific know-how, best practices and ideas to the team.
Finally, we are looking for a Web Operations Manager and a Web Operations Specialist, because until the final whistle of EURO 2020 we will have to set up and run various different web shops. One for fans in host countries; specific shops for fans of competing teams; a portal for fans to resell tickets; also portals for sponsors and other business partners. Although we have a powerful system, web shops do not appear by magic. We are looking for people used to setting up and running them, preferably in relation to ticketing.
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