GCI, the largest telecommunications provider in the state, is planning to move all of its call-center operations out of Alaska and will contract with a third-party vendor to provide the service from the Philippines.
The move will start this summer, according to a report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Saturday.
The company, which provides cable television, internet, cell and wired telephone services in Alaska, has had a hard time filling its call-center jobs, said Heather Handyside, vice president for corporate communications at GCI.
Currently, GCI's operation in Anchorage is set to run with 142 employees to handle customer service calls, but the company has routinely been unable to fill up to 30% of the positions, Handyside told the News-Miner. The vacancies hurt customer service, she said.
"For our consumer customer service calls, right now they go to employees in Alaska, and some of the customers need to be on hold for up to 90 minutes," she said. "We hope the transition will help us decrease the call wait times and expand the call-line service to 24/7."
GCI has tried to hire more employees, including offering a sign-up bonus, Handyside said, but it has been challenging to fill the jobs and keep them filled.
The company plans to offer jobs elsewhere in its Alaska operations, such as at retail stores, to 84 of its call-center employees.
GCI has more than 200,000 consumer accounts in Alaska, separate from business or government accounts, and many of those consumer accounts cover multiple services such as cell phones and the internet.
The company started in Alaska in 1979. Its sale to Liberty Broadband of Colorado was completed last year.
Tata Consultancy Services, an India-based multinational technology company, will run the call center in the Philippines.
Outsourcing call-center work to overseas providers is an increasingly common practice, particularly for banks and communications companies.
Heather Hudson, former director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said she believes the move will save GCI money.
"It's not surprising given that a lot of companies are doing that, and given the current ownership of GCI (outside Alaska)," she told the Anchorage Daily News on Monday.
Customers calling GCI will start to see the transition in August, Handyside told the Daily News. The switch will be completed in November, allowing workers in the Philippines training time on GCI customer issues and needs, she said.
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