March 2003

By James Beatty

Have you ever called America Online, Hertz, Southwest Airlines, Sprint PCS or The Hartford Insurance Company? Well, I have and I wanted to find out where I was calling. Guess what? It is a better-than-average chance that I was calling these companies at their contact center in Oklahoma City. Thanks to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce (who coordinated my visit as they would do for any serious call center or back-office prospect), I was able to visit and see firsthand why these and other fine firms have located their contact centers in this city. I enjoyed two days of visiting call centers and talking with call center executives to better understand, 'Why Oklahoma City?' I will do my best to share with you the excitement and energy that was shared with me when people talked about operating their centers in this great city.

The Oklahoma City Area
The Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) consists of the six counties of Oklahoma (yes, it is a county and a state), Canadian, Cleveland, McClain, Logan and Pottowatomie, and is the 49th largest MSA in the U.S. and the 29th largest city in the U.S. The Oklahoma City MSA area covers 4,242 square miles, giving it not only a large land area but, more important, a large number of people from which to draw for call centers and similar operations.

Population And Labor Force
According to the U.S. Census 2000, the Oklahoma City MSA population is 1,083,346, which is a 13% gain from the 958,839 the area had in 1990. The city's population during the same period grew from 444,719 to 506,132 and is projected to reach 564,295 by year 2010.

As of 2001, the labor force for the MSA area was sitting at 533,400 with a 3.9 percent unemployment rate. The labor force has grown from 493,663 in 1990 to its present 554,900 and a 4.3 percent unemployment rate in 2002. The labor participation rate for the area is 69 percent.

Another key factor to consider is the number of high school graduates, which were 9,383 in 2002. The average ACT Score is 19 compared to the U.S. average of 21. The 15 colleges and universities located in the area have a total enrollment of 107,659, which is very appealing for those operations needing part-time and flexible workers.

Those institutions and enrollment are as listed below.

The educational level of attainment should be noted for those operations requiring high school or college education.

The proximity to Tinker Air Force Base, which is less than 10 miles southeast of the city, provides even more opportunities for customer service operations seeking proven talent. The Tinker Air Force resource pool provides an additional 2,000 trained personnel who annually leave the military but remain in the area. These highly trained people have experience in technical, managerial, computer and electronic skills. Spouses of active personnel represent an additional 6,000 to 7,000 available workers, the majority of whom have two years of college and customer service and data entry skills.

The racial and ethnic population of the area will also be a plus for those customer service operations seeking diversity and a multicultural work environment. The breakdown according to the U.S. Bureau of Census 2000 for the MSA is:

Due to the size of the area, the commute patterns are interesting to note as well. According to the latest data, the commute time and number of people are as outlined.

Clearly the workforce is willing to drive for good jobs.

Area Income And Average Wage Levels
The MSA Median Household Income in year 2000 was $32,286, with 72.5 percent of the area with incomes of $49,999 or less. The average per capita personal income in calendar year 2000 was $23,436, which was just 80 percent of the U.S. average of $29,469.

Many of the call centers I visited were extremely happy with the entry-level wages, which were in the $8.50 to $10.00 range.

Call Center Incentives
The State of Oklahoma has the Quality Jobs Program, which is a new cash-back program aimed at manufacturing and service sector attraction and investment. In a nutshell, the business must be a central administrative office or service company with out-of-state sales exceeding 75 percent of total sales and must achieve a payroll of $2.5 million or more. The actual amount of the incentive is determined by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. Most businesses will fall in the cash-back range of 3 to 4 percent of their total payroll.

Other incentives include Customized Employee Training for Industry Program (TIP), which is delivered through the state's Career Technology Centers, of which there are nine in the Oklahoma City Metro area alone.

Tax exemptions on specific computer data processing service facilities are also available, as are exemptions on 1-800,WATS and private line telecommunications systems. The area believes in and supports this industry and is well worth the time and effort to pursue serious discussions!

Real Estate
Oklahoma City has an abundance of space ready for call center, back-office and administrative use with ample adjacent parking. Rates for Class A and Class B space will range from $10.00 to $18.50 triple net.

Call Center/Back Office Employment
This industry is doing well in the area as it proudly boasts of 28 companies employing 15,212 talented and reliable workers. This means that if it were to be measured as an employment sector such as manufacturing, the call center 'sector' would rank 9th out of 11. In fact, the Chamber cites seven expansion projects in 2002 totaling 1,983 workers, demonstrating the availability and attractiveness of this sector in the area. This represented an outstanding 14.9 percent employment growth in the industry in 2002 over 2001. At 15,212 workers, the call center industry represents 2.8 percent of the area's labor force.

When calculating the opportunity for growth within this segment and using 4 percent as saturation rate means that the area can grow to 21,336 workers or an additional 6,124 new workers before any significant issues of labor costs would begin to surface.

However, given the continued growth of the area's labor force and population, the Oklahoma City area will be in great shape for new operations and expansions of current centers for quite a long time. In fact, when Sprint PCS held a job fair for 1,000 customer positions, they received over 13,000 applications!

Following is a listing of the call centers and back office operations and a map showing their locations.

1.  APAC Customer Service ' Employees: 300; Outbound

2.  AT&T Wireless ' Employees: 2,400; Inbound

3.  America Online ' Employees: 1,475; Inbound

4.  American Cancer Society ' Employees: 150

5.  Avaya, Inc. ' Employees: 400; Inbound

6.  Boise Cascade Office Products ' Employees: 300 ' 350; In- & Outbound

7.  CIT Group/Sales Financing, Inc. ' Employees: 225; Inbound

8.  Cendant's Travelers Advantage ' Employees: 300; Inbound

9.  Center Partners ' Employees: 100; Inbound

10.  Convergys Customer Mgt. Group ' Employees: 1,450; Inbound

11.  Cox Cable ' Employees: 310; Inbound

12.  DialAmerica Marketing ' Employees: 100; Outbound

13.  DialAmerica Marketing ' Employees: 100; Outbound

14.  Farmers Insurance Group ' Employees: 800; Inbound

15.  Globe Life ' Employees: 42; Inbound

16.  Hertz Reservation Center/Data Center ' Employees: 3,100; Inbound

17.  Midland Credit Corp. ' Employees: 250 by 2005; Inbound

18.  Seagate Technology ' Employees: 200; Inbound

19.  Service Zone ' Employees: 450; In- & Outbound

20.  Southwest Airlines Reservation Ctr. ' Employees: 850; Inbound

21.  Sprint PCS ' Employees: 1,300; In- & Outbound

22.  TCI Services ' Employees: 200; Outbound

23.  TCI Services ' Employees: 150 ' 200; Outbound

24.  The Hartford Group ' Employees: 400; Inbound

25.  Travelers Motor Club ' Employees: Not avail.; In- & Outbound

26.  VisionQuest Marketing ' Employees: 60; Outbound

27.  West Interactive Corp. ' Employees: 300; Inbound

28.  Williams-Sonoma ' Employees: 100; Inbound

Well, to paraphrase Will Rogers, the native son for whom the Oklahoma City airport is named, 'The city is not just OK, it just plain makes good sense.'

My heartfelt thanks to all who e-mail me. Please send your questions and comments on this as well as ideas for future articles to me at [email protected] or [email protected] and remember to go to the Web site www.callcentersites.net, 'The official site for call center and back office locations worldwide,' for the latest in call center information.

James Beatty is president of NCS International, Inc., which specializes in corporate site selection, community analysis and marketing.

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