Telecom NZ to trial Philippine offshoring

Telecom New Zealand has announced it will run a trial in the Philippines to see if it was “feasible” to move its contact centre operations there.

About 400 employees at the Hamilton Telecom 123 contact centre were told that a four-month trial will be run to determine if it’s feasible to move some or all of their jobs to Manila. Management stressed Telecom was only running a trial and no jobs would be lost in Hamilton if customers were less satisfied with the Philippines-based service, he said.

The trial in the Philippines will begin in April with a contact centre of 42 people supported by trainers, team leaders and mentors from Hamilton. More than 100 contact centre jobs were lost in Palmerston North last year when the Yellow Pages group outsourced the work to the Philippines.

Originally published in Callcentres.net