Following is a memo today to select employees; I believe the Tulsa customer service operation once known as the Center of Excellence has 150 employees. The consolidation plan calls for adding 131 positions: 53 in Greenville, S.C.; 43 in Phoenix, and 35 in Detroit, according to a FAQ sent to employees. Text of Trubiano's memo:
Subject: Tulsa CSC Closure Communications Completed
FYI.
Manager meetings and announcements to all CSC staffers have been made regarding the closure of the Tulsa call center effective March 31, 2011. Staffers have been provided these two documents [see, below] post the announcement. Following the announcement several communications will be sent to various individuals as well as the newspapers served by all CSC's . We wanted to provide this to you so you are aware of what has transpired.
Related: Austin Ryan's memo to employees. Plus: a FAQ memo
Subject: Tulsa CSC Closure Communications Completed
FYI.
Manager meetings and announcements to all CSC staffers have been made regarding the closure of the Tulsa call center effective March 31, 2011. Staffers have been provided these two documents [see, below] post the announcement. Following the announcement several communications will be sent to various individuals as well as the newspapers served by all CSC's . We wanted to provide this to you so you are aware of what has transpired.
Related: Austin Ryan's memo to employees. Plus: a FAQ memo
Here's a quote from the memo: "In order to continue to improve the level of service we provide to consumers..." I can only imagine the committee that wrote this sitting around and laughing hysterically as they came up with this crap. They probably gave a bonus to the person who concocted the most ridiculous phrase as they screwed with peoples'lives.
ReplyDelete...how many days was this in operation before Gannett decided to eliminate it?
ReplyDeleteThe center opened June of 2007
ReplyDeleteIsn't this the same memo that went out announcing the COE except with in-source instead of outsource?
ReplyDeleteJust proof that one-size-fits-all consolidation doesn't work for everyone! I know - I watched all of them roll in at the Tulsa center - and there were major issues and the plumbing for Detroit and Phoenix was NEVER functioning. A long time coming - and it is finally done. I just wish Gannett would learn its lesson - and quit the overreaching unnecessary consolidations.
ReplyDeleteSo, after causing Gannett newspapers across the nation to eliminate its customer service in favor of these Centers of Excellence, then recognizing that the three centers were undermanned, overwhelmed and disconnected from the papers they were set up to serve, we respond by... reducing down to two centers? Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteHere's an idea: Let's reduce publication of Gannett dailies to five days a week, rotating the "missing" day throughout Mondays to Saturdays at random. I bet we won't hardly get any calls, since our "streamlined" service is such that folks can't call their local numbers and get a local person to help them; operators at these centers really don't give a crap about helping readers -- and have no vested interest or site-specific pressure to excel for Richmond or Clarksville or Stanton or whereever.
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ReplyDeleteRemember that six months ago or so we were told the COE's had to reduce the hours they were taking calls.
ReplyDelete(It was about the same time we stopped calling them Centers of Excellence)
So our readers, not being idiots, called the local number and beat the keypad with their foreheads until they got a live person to talk to.
And our staff, whether sports, finance or circ, would deliver that missed paper - not their job, of course, but because here we all know how valuable every reader is, we take care of it.
That's our site. Yours may differ - but we have some of the best numbers for complaints, growth and retention.
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ReplyDeleteSmells like Austin Ryan just dropped another dump
ReplyDeleteI take offense to those who think being local makes you "care". Where you live has no baring on how well you do your job. You either have a good work ethic or you don't. You care or you don't. If you do not care you will not make it in customer service, anywhere. I do not have to live in the same town to care about someone. I love and care about my family and don't live by them. This is a ridiculous, small minded notion akin to those who only want God to Bless America.
ReplyDeleteHow is loosing 150 then adding back 131 "adding" jobs? -150+131= negative 19. That's 19 jobs lost not gained. I hope the person who thinks this is a positive is not in charge of the accounting department.
ReplyDeletei am (now) a former Tulsa CSC employee... I am saying now that just because i took calls from arizona and was in tulsa didnot mean i didn't care about my customers... I was limited by Gannett as to what i could do for my customers and I can tell you they tied my hands on more than one occasion... The Tulsa call center was the #1 call center a majority of the time out of all of the centers. The arizona customers are the ones suffering now that we are closed... they are dealing with all new employees who have no idea how to handle the calls, complaints nor the volume that they are handling.... I know that in the last 60 days i handled multiple calls where the customers were blatantly lied to, misinformed, or ignored by the new Arizona call center. Good luck to all of them and Gannett... we were a call center of 150 and when we closed we left with 120 people... MUCH more than Gannett thought they were going to have to pay severence packages to. And our dedication was to each other NOT gannett!!! We had become a family and will continue to be one without Gannett.
ReplyDeleteI worked in Circulation at The Republic when they announced that they were going to open a Center Of Excellence in Tulsa. I loudly expressed my concern that this type of outsourcing may save money in the short run but will have a high cost in customer service. (nothing against the Tulsa staff) I continued to express my concern even as the office opened and the pains that had not been considered were being addressed after the fact. I was told to "get on board" with the change. My position was eliminated in 2008, which I no longer lament since The Arizona Republic Circulation department is run by Big Brother/Survivor wannabees manipulating the staff to their own amusement. I was not aware at the time that Gannett was given hefty tax breaks to make this ill fated move. I was just getting "on board" when the announcement was made public that Tulsa was closing.
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