Call Center News

Verizon plans to employ up to 1,300 at Little Rock, Arkansas Call Center

Verizon would include a call center that initially employs between 1,000 and 1,200 workers -- somewhat larger than the 800 currently employed at Alltel's call center.

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City of Fort Wayne Launches 311 Call Center

Fort Wayne, IN -  The City of Fort Wayne today continued its commitment to convenience and technology with the launch of 311, a new One Call to City Hall program designed to improve customer service. Fort Wayne is the first city in Indiana to utilize the new service.

The public now can dial 311 to get quick and easy access to non-emergency City services. Several City departments are part of the initial rollout.

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New Call Center Opens in Paro, Bhutan

Paro, Bhutan -- The second call center in the country, TST system private limited, opened in Paro on May 7 and hopes to go fully operational within this month. The TST’s operational director, Tandin Wangdi, told Kuensel that the call center has employed around 35 telemarketers of which 16 of them were trained in Kolkata, India, with financial assistance from the ministry of labour and human resource.

Meanwhile, Drukonnet, the first call centre in Thimphu, hopes to be fully operational in three to four months. The call center has been training around 150 people in English and computer since October last year.

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Foxgate Solutions, Inc. Opens New Call Center in Cebu Philippines

Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines - Foxgate Solutions, Inc., a worldwide provider of integrated business process outsourcing (BPO) and contact center solutions, announced today its opening of a new call center in the Philippines.

The new center shall cater to different clients in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Philippines with operations in Inbound, Outbound, Interactive, Appointment Setting, Billing Solutions, Event Registration, Consumer Lead Generation, Consumer Sales, Customer Service, Dealer Locate and Referral Service, Help Desk, Market Research and Reviews, Order Taking, Surveys, Technical Support, and Website Receptionist Service.

OneLink Announces Call Center Sale and First International Contract Offer

San Fransisco, CA - OneLink Corporation announced today that the company had officially sold the Call Center, Inc. for relief of approximately $200,000 in debt, and would be realizing further value from the transaction through the decrease of the company burn rate by approximately $20,000 per month.

"We are happy the Call Center sale has gone through and given us the ability to move back into our market with a renewed focus on OneLink," stated Bill Guerin, President and CEO of OneLink. "Over the past few weeks, we have been talking to several interested parties looking to use OneLink for purposes of booking and paying for travel packages at competitive discount rates, not to mention the most popular feature that guarantees commission payments at the point of sale, not weeks or months later as per the industry standard. "As of today, one of our strongest prospects has made us an offer that we intend to accept. Once completed, we will be setting up over 10,000 additional users on the OneLink system, with an estimated account value of approximately $6 million for the company."

Kansas Call Center to Come Under New Ownership

Lawrence, Kansas - A private-sector employer is getting a new owner as part of a $600 million deal designed to speed the company's existing plans for growth. Pearson Government Solutions, which has a call center operation in the East Hills Business Park, is being sold to Veritas Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm.

Veritas announced Monday that it would pay $600 million for the company, which has more than 5,500 employees in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina and Venezuela. The Lawrence center has 1,600 of those employees, ranking it among the company's two largest operations. The deal, which awaits regulatory approval, is expected to close Feb. 15.

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New York Times Cites Rapid Call Center Growth in the Philippines

The New York Times last month wrote an article about the rise of call centers in the Philippines because of lower cost, employee loyalty and cultural similarities with the United States. D. Greenlees of the NY Times said that as India moves up-market in outsourcing, the Philippines is quickly gaining a share of the call center business. It may be a low-end, low-margin business, but for the Philippines it has been an employment boon.

He said "evidence of that sharp growth is on display early in the evening in the lobby of the RCBC Plaza building in Makati City, the main financial district of Manila. Clutches of young men and women, Starbucks coffee and McDonald's bags in hand, head to work at more than a dozen call centers serving the United States, just as other workers are heading home."

On a recent trip to Hong Kong to drum up investor interest, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo noted that there were barely 2,000 people in the so-called business process outsourcing industry when she gave her first State of the Nation address in 2001. "Today, five years later, it is 100 times bigger - we have 200,000 workers there," she said at a news briefing. "And every call center company that I meet is looking to double their work force."

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CSC to Open New Call Center in Prague, Czech Republic

El Segundo, CA - Computer Sciences Corporation today announced the opening of a new delivery center in Prague, Czech Republic, in response to client demand for near-shore service delivery alternatives. The center will provide a range of information technology (IT) services and be fully integrated as part of CSC's World Sourcing model.

The Central European center will offer greater physical access to European clients while still providing cost savings beyond traditional outsourcing models. Other benefits include similar culture and a variety of common languages. The Prague center will focus on applications development, help desk/call center support and "follow-the-sun" systems monitoring and maintenance. Other services will be available on an as-needed basis.

Intuit to Open 150 Seat Call Center in Orlando, FL

Orlando, FL - The company that produces Turbo Tax, Quicken and other consumer and business software is opening a customer-support center in Central Florida Research Park, with plans to hire 150 people by the end of the year. Intuit Inc. plans initially to hire mostly graduate and undergraduate students from the nearby University of Central Florida, said Mike Runda, the company's Orlando-based vice president of global technical support services.

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General Santos City Philippines to Open First Call Center in 2007

Mindanao, Philippines - A Southwestern Mindanao based call center company is planning to open General Santos City's first-ever call center by next year in a bid to provide work opportunities for the growing local pool of qualified call center agents. Joji Ilagan-Bian, chair of Davao City-based call center SixEleven Global Services, said the company has prioritized the immediate expansion of its call center operations in the GenSan city. Southwestern Mindanao covers the provinces of South Cotabato, Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat, Cotabato and the cities of General Santos, Koronadal, Cotabato, Kidpawan and Tacurong.

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