At a recent panel discussion on U.S. jobs at the White House, Mary Murcott, CEO of the global outsourcing firm Novo 1 said the percentage of customer support reps outside of the country has fallen to around 12 percent. Not too long ago almost a third of the five million call-center jobs were outsourced to contractors around the world, with India and the Philippines capturing the lion’s share. However, today many of these same companies are coming back to the U.S. because the vast majority of customers prefer dealing with call center agents based here. This has led to a steady increase in call center employment around the country.
Chime Solutions Inc. is the latest company to hire a large call center workforce in the U.S. and it will be doing so in Clayton County, Ga. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company provides human resource business process outsourcing, specializing in staffing solutions and contact center services. According to Douglas Sams of the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the company's new call center will create at least 1,120 jobs.
"We are very excited for the grand opening of our contemporary, 1,000-seat contact center in Morrow and the building of a capable and experienced workforce to meet our clients’ staffing and contact center needs,” said Shelly Wilson, CEO of Chime Solutions Inc. “I’m very pleased to have reassembled my former leadership team, comprised of proven and experienced human resource and contact center professionals who will execute our strategies."
The new center will be located in a former JC Penney store at Southlake Mall in Morrow. The location provides an environment with a solid infrastructure and an affordable lease in a 65,000-square-foot facility. It will be a state-of-the-art call center providing customer care phone support, helpdesk, technical support and seasonal based customer-service projects. The process of hiring has already begun, and besides call center representatives the company will be looking for executives, administrators and supervisors.
"Georgia has become a global hub for communications services. With the help of our top 10-ranked talent pool, this industry has grown to include nearly 300 Georgia-based companies,” said Gov. Nathan Deal. “Our competitive business climate and dynamic cluster of companies will continue to support innovative call center firms such as Chime Solutions."
Edited by Rory J. Thompson