We’ve been told we’re going back to the office, I think not. Rumor is call centers are next on the chopping block, no surprise since most companies now outsource those jobs overseas. Now is the perfect opportunity for WF to start closing local offices to reduce their real estate footprint. I’m betting on 8/19 for the call center layoffs.
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WF wouldn't need as many call centers if they made some of their basic functions self service and upgraded their digital offerings.
When companies outsource, I don’t understand why they can’t just be forth right with their teams and let them know about the transition? I get that they’ll lose people but at the same time, if people resign they don’t have to pay severance. Offer a retention bonus to those who stay until the transition is complete. Guarantee people will stay for a bonus.
The call center is one of the first places to cut costs. If you develop a product, in any industry, the last thing you want to do is pay money to support the darn thing. You will do whatever you can do to improve quality, automate support, etc. A call center will never be a stable role, and the attrition rate is pretty rough. Customer satisfaction is horrible for a reason, that is because a company prefer to reduce CSAT from 99% to 90%, within that 8% variation, there is a monetary value assigned to it.
I think they're going to keep some call centers in the US, geographically spread out. During covid, the employees in the Phillipines were under lockdown, and it was a disaster for customers calling about their 401(k)s. There were on hold for hours. Surely WF learned a lesson there.
Last I worked with/near call center folks (been about 5 years) they used to be in FL, MO, MN, IA, TX, VA and NC. The ones in VA will probably all get let go as they already laid off close to 300 WIM folks at that facility. Guess they are selling the building as it isn't a hub. IA & FL could be at risk depending on the facility they are at. Other locations may be semi-safe as they are hubs. But, would expect number of US staff to be significantly ramped down and a lot of those jobs to go to India & Philippines.
My group does quality monitoring for our domestic Auto Call centers in NC, TX, and MN. While the frontline call center aspect is still primarily executed in the US, the monitoring aspect is not.
We have a group of Quality Monitors in Manila (who outnumber what we have stateside) who’s primary task is to evaluate employee/customer interactions with little understanding of business policy and risk control. They just crank out product to satisfy a checkbox with regulatory. No quality.. just quantity.
I am in a call center and we are now in the process of training a newly created team located in the Philippines… of course we were told this was for cost savings…. Go figure.
WF still has domestic call centers?
Happy shareholders.
Miserable customers.
The WF way.
I'm guessing that there will still be call centers, probably just less headcount total. If you call in and navigate through all the bots and overseas CSRs, and the hold times, you might get to talk to one of them. Almost certainly have to hear a recording of an overly chipper lady saying something like "did you know you can use the self help tools on the WF app?" every couple of minutes on hold though.
And it's allll the "serve customers better". Mmmmm-hmmm.