HP Will Direct More U.S. Customers To U.S. Call Centers

[OhioChick]

Posted 2/28/2008

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) on Thursday will buck the off-shoring trend when it announces it is opening eight new call centers to make it more likely that U.S. customers will talk with a North American agent.

With explosive growth in computer sales fueling demand, HP is shifting its tack to serving customers with call agents more likely to be comfortable with callers' language and culture.

Half of the new centers will be in the U.S. or Canada, increasing the chance that HP's North American customers will chat with North American agents and not someone from a call center in India or elsewhere who has learned English as a second language, HP executives say.

HP, however, isn't totally rejecting off-shoring. Two of the call centers are in the Philippines, and they will handle some calls from U.S. customers.

The two other new call centers are in Mexico and Argentina and will serve Spanish speakers.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&artnum=3&issue=20080228

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. The only upside to a crashing dollar. n/t

[Donnachaidh]

2. They have some call centers in Canada now

At least one friend in Nova Scotia is working in an HP call center. I certainly don't have a problem with them placing those jobs in areas that need the work (as Nova Scotia does).

Now if they'd open a few in American cities that need the jobs - like Flint, Michigan, which was devastated from the auto industry bailing out - that would be brilliant.

[Gloria]

3. The trick is to call during the day....if you call at night you wind up in India

I figured this out, finally!