KEEPING CUSTOMER SERVICE AT HOME

Bucking the trend of outsourcing customer service overseas, Alltel is expanding and investing in its customer service call centers in the U.S., most recently by building a new call center in El Paso, Texas, and expanding an existing center in Youngstown, Ohio.

The regional wireless carrier is spending $4.5 million on a 50,000 square foot facility in El Paso and will add more than 300 jobs there, making a total work force of around 450 once the building is completed later this summer. As Alltel expands its consumer base to the west, more bilingual Spanish speaking reps are necessary, so the company is currently recruiting bilingual customer service representatives (CSRs) in Western markets.

The El Paso location will be five times larger than the current site and will include a training area, break rooms, library, patio, quiet rooms and other employees-oriented areas.

“We're offering spaces in the call center that they can take advantage of when they're not taking calls — some leisure rooms and some game rooms and really just an upgraded environment for the employees,” said Chuck Toomer, Alltel's vice president of customer service.

Alltel is hoping to decrease employee turnover, which is historically highest in CSR positions throughout the industry. Each Alltel CSR requires from five weeks to 10 weeks of training before they are able to take calls, Toomer said, an expensive loss if an employee only sticks around for six months.

“If we can increase the average tenure of a rep by even just one month, that can be calculated pretty easily in economic terms from a savings perspective,” Toomer said. Alltel will continue to use the Aspect Software CallCenter automatic call-distributing switch to run its new and existing call centers, Toomer said.

Alltel has been an Aspect Software customer for about six years, said Alan Burnstine, senior product manager of call center software for Aspect Software, and is using a fairly simple configuration of the product, which allows TDM or IP-based operation, although Alltel is operating on the public network. Toomer said the technology is basically the same that is used in call centers company wide.

Alltel also added 150 jobs and spent $1.5 million to expand an existing center in Youngstown, Ohio.

Larry Goldman, co-founder and senior analyst for OSS Observer, said companies like Alltel are looking to retain their CSRs as they realize the benefits to consumers and to their bottom line.

“The trend is not to keep pushing those jobs to India,” Goldman said. “Part of [Alltel's] message is ‘Hey, we're local; we can take better care of you.’ In that case, you need more emphasis on customer care.”