United To Move Some Jobs Back To US From India

[slushie]

Hey, maybe if we brought them ALL back...

http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1234341422.html

February 11, 2009
United Airlines parent UAL said on Tuesday it will fill 165 customer relations jobs -- previously outsourced to India -- in the United States.
The move runs counter to the trend among US companies of sending jobs overseas to save money. But UAL said the change is cost neutral to the company because US workers who take airline reservations would respond to customer feedback as well.
The jobs will be located in Chicago and Hawaii.
United, which cut 7,000 jobs last year and plans to cut 1,000 more this year, said the customer relations work outsourced to India a few years ago has been done by contractors.
In-house, US-based employees would perform better because responding to customer feedback requires a greater understanding of the airline and its policies than is generally possessed by an outside contractor, a UAL spokeswoman said.

(Reuters)

 

[derg]

What a wonderful idea!

 

[Pilotforhire587]

thank you Jesus, some one is moving jobs back. Its a start but I wish more companies would do so as well, I honestly wouldn't mind paying a little extra for products if i know we made the here in the U.S.A. and my money was helping to pay some guy to feed his American family. Not to mention the economy right now. I bet, not that would know because I'm not a politician:bandit:, but if we spent money and it went to some one in the U.S. we would be ckeeping more money here and our economy would be in better shape.

It still sucks that they will be dropping 1000 jobs this year though.

 

[WacoFan]

thank you Jesus, some one is moving jobs back. Its a start but I wish more companies would do so as well, I honestly wouldn't mind paying a little extra for products if i know we made the here in the U.S.A. and my money was helping to pay some guy to feed his American family. Not to mention the economy right now. I bet, not that would know because I'm not a politician:bandit:, but if we spent money and it went to some one in the U.S. we would be ckeeping more money here and our economy would be in better shape.

It still sucks that they will be dropping 1000 jobs this year though.

I think the first time I ever used the "Yeah that" emoticon was when someone here - about a year ago - said that things would meltdown so badly that eventually all the outsourced jobs would come home because the labor force would be in need. Glad that the jobs are coming home - but it isn't too early to think about KEEPING them here once things turn around. There will be widespread differences over how to keep them here amongst the members of JC but we can all agree it would be a good thing.

 

[JEP]

We just took back a buttload of IT work from Big Blue in India. I think they work from a 'script-type' environment. They work as exactly as to how they are told which only works to a certain extent. If something varies even the slightest from the script they do not know what to do, or if they know, they won't do it. That is bad in any business, especially in IT.

 

[Murdoughnut]

I do a lot of research in this area - there's actually been a movement in the last 2-3 years for companies to move their call center operations back state side. The loss in customer satisfaction has been shown to outweigh the financial benefits in many cases. Here at HSN, we cater to older women, which is why we decided to close all of our overseas call center ops. There's a real and mathematically verified relationship between call center satisfaction and sales - became too costly for us to operate call centers overseas.

 

[Minuteman]

Let this be a lesson in contempt.

When times are fat, there seems to be a conscious decision made to trade-off quality for volume, and that it is OK to disappoint your customers with a lousy, cheaper product because there are always other customers to keep the company near capacity.

Now that times are lean, "cost-neutral" may mean "yes, the price of support is more, but it won't drive off the business we have left." I even got asked if I needed any help at Home Depot the other day!

Maybe we'll see "Even More Room Throughout Coach" now.

 

[Brian Z]

What! Now when I call customer service I might have a chance on understanding what the person is trying to say! Now that is a novel concept.

 

[CFIscare]

Here's to hoping it continues...

 

[Polar742]

Maybe we'll see "Even More Room Throughout Coach" now.

Was that not the biggest farce ever? Year over year ASM growth was WAY outstripping RSM growth, making the load factors look lower. The general public was pissed off.

The execs played the "Oh, you're uncomfortable? Cool, we just yanked some seats out for leg room" P.R. card, while making it look like ASM growth was slowed, thus making their load factors look higher.

Back on topic, a guy I know works at a machine shop. His company, as well as the others in town, are having to turn away work. I guess we can STILL build things...

Keep it real; Ship it air freight....

 

[FlyChicaga]

This is outstanding news!

 

[E_Dawg]

I always have to laugh/weep when I walk by an empty customer service desk in the terminal! This is at least a step in the right direction!

 

[upup89]

Hope this is the start of many more to come