Posted on: Saturday, November 2, 2002
Genesys axes call center
By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer
French teleconferencing company Genesys Conferencing says it plans to close its Honolulu call center by January and lay off all of its 100 employees.
The company is consolidating call-center operations into two larger centers on the Mainland, said Mar-
gie Medalle, the Hawai'i-based chief executive of Genesys in North America.
Demand for Genesys' operator-assisted conference calls has dropped 30 percent this year, Medalle said, attributing the decline to a slow economy and to increased use of online teleconference software, which does not use live operators.
The announcement marks the latest in a series of call-center closures in Hawai'i. In the last two years, call centers operated by Federal Express, Sprint PCS, WorldPoint, Northwest Airlines and Hawaiian Wireless have closed, said Kevin Johnson, president of the Hawaii Call Centers Association.
Hawai'i telecommunications executives say the closures are a symptom of specific industry issues, and not an indicator that Hawai'i is unfit as a call-center site. They point out that several companies are expanding their call centers here, and expect to pick up many of the employees let go by Genesys.
"You watch the trend of people leaving, and it's all very logical," Johnson said. "Some of the companies closed, others consolidated their centers into megacenters on the Mainland. Most of the centers here are quite small, and those are the first ones to go.
"But none of that is alarming, because we have other centers that are growing and performing very well."
AT&T Long Distance, for example, has trebled the size of its Hawai'i call center from 100 to 300 employees since the beginning of 2001, spokesman George Irion said. The center is now one of the four largest in AT&T. Irion said its multilingual staff generates excellent revenues.
"We're proof that this can be done in Hawai'i," he said. "Any center is always at risk — businesses are always looking to be more efficient — so ... (AT&T's expansion) is a really strong endorsement of the quality of people here."
Johnson said economic development officials are concentrating on attracting call centers that deal with "gold callers" — customers who have questions requiring specialized answers or help from talented professionals. The American Healthways center in Kapolei, for example, is entirely staffed with registered nurses, he said.
Generic call centers are easily duplicated in other places, and most Hawai'i operations are too small or too high-paying to compete unless they have a specialty, Johnson said.
Johnson said Genesys is automating many of its services
and no longer needs as many
call-center employees.
Genesys will shut down its center at 1001 Bishop St. between Dec. 13 and Jan. 13, Donald Dixon, the company's North America human resources director, said in a letter yesterday to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
Medalle said Genesys will try to sublease the facility to another call-center company. Officials from two companies are visiting next month to tour the facility, she said.
