Posted on 09/19/2007 7:45:21 PM PDT by Dubya
San Antonio-based AT&T Inc. announced plans Wednesday to bring 175 call center jobs once outsourced overseas back to the United States, part of a group of 5,000 outsourced jobs company officials plan to fold back into its operations.
The new call center, to be located at AT&T Arkansas' headquarters in Little Rock, will help callers who have AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet services. The new union-represented jobs will bring AT&T Arkansas up to 2,800 employees with a $135 million payroll, said president Ed Drilling.
"These jobs are currently outsourced to other companies and a lot of the work is actually done overseas," Drilling told a news conference at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. "We're bringing these jobs as part of an ongoing commitment back into the country."
Drilling said he did not know what countries currently fielded the calls.
Gov. Mike Beebe attended the announcement, saying he had been "strictly warned" not to mention the other states that vied for the call center jobs. However, Beebe said that "two of them were real big states" and that competition had been tough.
"Apparently, there was dissatisfaction by the customers with the services that were being rendered because of the outsourcing overseas," Beebe later told reporters.
Ted Wagnon, an AT&T Arkansas spokesman, disagreed, saying the "other companies gave very good customer service." Late Wednesday, Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said the governor misspoke and meant to say that union workers were dissatisfied with the outsourcing.
Walt Sharp, an AT&T spokesman based out of the company's San Antonio headquarters, said the return of the Little Rock jobs from contractors was part of a push to bring 5,000 contracted jobs back into the company under union representation. He said the vast majority of those jobs covered technical support from the company's DSL services.
"We prefer to do our jobs in-house," Sharp said. "These jobs have been done as outsourced since the inception of the product they serviced" in the 1990s.
Wednesday's announcement comes on the heels of several other major economic announcements in Little Rock. Dassault Falcon Aircraft says it will make a $10 million investment and 100 jobs over the next three years, on top of another $20 million expansion announced in June. A Denmark company announced it would build a new $150 million windmill blade factory and headquarters in Little Rock, employing more than 1,000 people. An Indian company also will build a $100 million pipe plant in the city.
AT&T stock closed up 75 cents in Wednesday trading to $41.58.
“Steve” from Bangalore, India is very upset.
Its easier to understand a guy in India than Arkansas. LOL
That’s great. I hope I’ll be able to understand the people when I call. For a northern hillbilly, it ain’t always easy to understand them people from down south.
Hehhehheh. Great minds, etc, etc.
Got a marketing call from BellSouth a few months ago that was obviously outsourced to India or some other Asian country. I just thought to myself, “Are they trying to sell me something or just pi$$ me off.” What idiots!
I don’t know if this is technically correct....
but since this seems to be, albeit modest, a return of jobs from overseas...
I’ve associated the article with:
KEYWORD: INSOURCING
“Hello...this is being Jawharharalalalalalal...I mean, Joe... speaking with you now. Are you being rebooting?”
Going from one third-world country to another...
They make it sound like it’s a customer driven thing. The fact is the dollar is so low it’s not worth it to outsource anymore. American labor is almost as cheap and the savings on the long distance calls and extra time customers have to hold and then stay on the phone to talk to misunderstood indian english is factors driving this. Besides, they had an unprecedented increase in 3rd level escalations which came back to the US to resolve. It all equaled more expense.
It is being driven by costs not customer demand or a “commitment to the country”.
But nice to see anyway.
“Whut in tarnation is goin’ on with that sumbitch? Whoooo-eeee! That box is fried, y’all! You best be rebootin’, I tell you whut! Dang, you got more cruft than my Uncle Luther’s left ear!”
next why don’t they work on getting rid of automated answering...really annoying
I’ve just completed a college course “Indian pigeon English 101”, and now you tell me I’ve got to learn “Arkansas pigeon English 101” instead ???
so instead of Sanji, i’ll get Jeb?
“Hello, English-speaking person. This is Jeb answering your call. How about those razor-backs? They sure are doing great. Now, as to the nature of your technical difficulties, please be assured that I will be assisting you until the cows come home.”
Do the officers of the company have a clue what is going on? I’ve found that CIOs are very good and BSing the VPs into believing that outsourcing is a success.
At last, a little good news on the outsourcing front. Outsourcing is one of the great tragedies of the modern economy.
“I’ve found that CIOs are very good and BSing the VPs into believing that outsourcing is a success.” Should be ‘very good AT BSing the VPs’
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