AT&T Wireless acts to expand call center

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

AT&T Wireless has begun hiring and training 14 new employees to staff a new call center division in Honolulu by April 1, even as a half-dozen other Honolulu-based call centers have closed since 2001.

The 14 new AT&T Wireless employees will join the company's 10-year-old call center in Mililani. The new international division will handle calls for assistance from customers around the world when AT&T's New Jersey call center shuts down each night.

Currently AT&T Wireless customers who are overseas only get help 15 hours day through the New Jersey call center for such things as rates and dialing instructions, said Lissa Guild Eveleth, marketing and public relations manager for AT&T Wireless in Hawai'i.

The Honolulu-based international division will complement the New Jersey operation to provide 24-hour service.

AT&T Wireless' expansion goes against the trend of other call centers that have been laying off or transferring employees, or shutting down their Honolulu operations. Companies such as Sprint PCS, Federal Express and Northwest Airlines have closed their Honolulu call centers. The latest, Genesys Conferencing, said it will close its downtown call center and lay off most of its 100 employees by Jan. 31.

Many of the call centers have cited the expansion of Mainland "megacenters" that can handle a higher volume of calls at a lower cost.

But AT&T Wireless' Honolulu expansion makes economic sense because the call center employees have shown that they can handle calls efficiently and at a low cost, Eveleth said.

"For us, it works because of the economies of scale," she said. "We have an existing building that we own, and there are no additional hard costs, except for labor."