TSV 1860 München

TSV 1860 Munich is one of the largest and oldest clubs in the German Football League. With an extensive base of fans and corporate sponsors, as well as ticket and merchandise sales to manage, the club needed a reliable telephone system with complete operational availability.

“For the constantly changing tasks demanded by the club and our members, we needed a phone system that was highly flexible and that we could easily manage ourselves.”
— Bernd Ingerling, IT Manager and Board Member, TSV 1860 Munich.

The club’s aging telecommunications solution was no longer capable of meeting the requirements of a modern football club, and was inhibiting the club’s ability to function as a business. The club’s marketing arm, the International Management Group (IMG), also wanted a solution that integrated with the club’s CRM system and supported promotional activities to fans and potential sponsors. So in September 2007, TSV 1860 Munich set out to completely overhaul and modernise its telecommunications system.

“We just couldn’t find a sensible solution that might have incorporated the [existing] Siemens equipment. That’s why we followed the recommendation of Telba AG and concentrated on the ShoreTel solution.”
— Bernd Ingerling, IT Manager and Board Member, TSV 1860 Munich.

TSV 1860 Munich was able to quickly and easily deploy the ShoreTel Unified Communications system (UC). ShoreTel Voice Switches and IP Phones formed the hardware component of the installation. ShoreTel Call Manager’s intuitive desktop interface added new features and capabilities at each workstation, such as unified messaging, flexible call control features, and presence information. The system’s automated call distribution (ACD) features are of particular use in the club’s call centre, guiding fans through the ticket-ordering process. Other benefits include:

• The ACD functionality is key to the club’s marketing activities, as it allows the club to generate call numbers at short notice for the implementation and evaluation of campaigns.
• The system’s open, distributed architecture allows it to integrate seamlessly with the club’s existing CRM application, allowing the club to maximise and leverage valuable customer information.
• The ShoreTel UC system seamlessly integrates with Microsoft^® Outlook^®, allowing staff to retrieve numbers from their personal contacts with no need for additional data input.
• Enhanced productivity with nearly every call. Staff can search for contacts via their initials, and then dial by name, cutting the time it used to take to find and dial a number by up to 90 percent.
• Expensive service calls are eliminated, as system maintenance, including moves, adds, and changes, can be performed from anywhere on the network using the intuitive interface of ShoreTel Director.

“The equipment provided our marketing people at IMG with a platform that supports every imaginable kind of marketing campaign. The convenient dialing facilities have been an enormous improvement for all personnel. It is very easy and quick to adapt to the club’s changing demands, and this saves us time and money.”
— Bernd Ingerling, IT Manager, TSV 1860 Munich.