Rogers Announces A Move To A “100% Canadian-based Customer Service Team”

This is one of these press releases that make you say “hmmmmm”. Specifically this press release from Canadian telco Rogers which announces the following:

Rogers Communications today announced that all of its customer service team members across all brands are now based in Canada. This follows the company’s announcement earlier this month that it is hiring for 350 jobs at its new customer solutions centre in Kelowna, B.C.

This month, Rogers Communications completed the transition of 150 remaining customer service positions to Canada, with new jobs created with partners across Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. With its entire 7,000 strong customer service team now based in Canada, this milestone ensures that every phone call or online chat with Rogers, FIDO or chatr is answered by a customer solution specialist on Canadian soil.

Now I get why companies outsource their customer service to places like India, Egypt and the Philippines to name a few popular outsourcing destinations. But when things become, “sub-optimal” in the eyes of the customer, which is another way of saying that the customer experience isn’t that great, there’s often a rush to bring things back in house. That’s kind of how I read this section of this press release:

“We are a proud Canadian company and pride ourselves in quality contact centre jobs in the communities where we live and work,” said Eric Agius, Chief Customer Officer, Rogers Communications. “When our customers choose to call us for help with more complex issues, they’ll be served by our Canadian-based team members who are truly experts in our products and services – and as members of their communities, they can relate to the needs of our customers.”

I guess that their customers who were looking for help weren’t getting people who were experts in Rogers products and services, nor could they relate to the Rogers customers because they were not members of their communities. That supports my theory that things were “sub-optimal” with whomever Rogers was outsourcing to.

This is apparently part of a multi-year plan to improve the customer experience. Something that Rogers CEO Joe Natale is known for. We’ll have to see if this move truly does improve the customer experience for Rogers customers.

Leave a Reply

%d