After a six-month delay, Teleperformance’s customer care facility at Robb and Camp streets is now operational.
The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company has invested over US$2 million in the nearly 50,000 square foot centre, which has a capacity to house more than 1,500 employees.
It had previously announced plans to offer outsourcing services to 38 clients, including several large Fortune 500 companies, airlines, Comcast and retail giants, such as Walmart.
“I think it would advance not only Guyana as an entire country… but also hiring and making optimal jobs for persons, who can experience a different type of work site…,” Vice President of Operations Dr Dale Dan told a news conference yesterday, while noting that the company’s goal is to become the premier employer in Guyana.
“It is not just about being on top financially, which is very important for all of our businesses today, but it will be a type of organisation that is deeply felt by the communities in Guyana,” Dr Dan added.
In April, Dr Dan had expressed her hopes of having the call centre up and running by the early part of May. It was explained that the company had hoped to have 1,500 persons working at the location by August 1st, with an additional 900 being added to the team at the end of December this year.
Next week, the company will start training its first batch of employees. This week is dedicated to training the support staff on the company’s policies and reporting format.
Director of Training of Teleperformance USA Sarah Miller will be conducting sessions on the Customer Care Management System to enable the support staff to develop the employees to the Teleperformance standard. Additional training will be done in business analysis by Director of Business Services Larry Sell.
Executive Vice Presi-dent of Operations at Tele-performance USA Mike Corrigan will oversee the operations of Teleperfor-mance Guyana, since Guyana’s branch is a subsidiary of Teleperformance USA.
Corrigan noted that the company prides itself on a different management culture. He said about five years of groundwork went into the establishment of the local facility. He explained that while the company could have started operations in 30 days, it wanted to be “cautious, surgical and tactical” as it intends to set up the premier call centre in Guyana as well as the premier place of employment in the country. “No one is going to touch us,” he said, while addressing the first batch of employees.
Corrigan said Guyana was chosen because it is the only English-speaking country in South America, making it an attractive location to serve American companies. It is also in the same time zone as the East Coast of the USA, which means that there would not be a need for an additional shift. Additionally, he said after researching Suriname and other Caribbean countries, it was found that Guyana had a top notch education, workforce and technology.
The company will be starting with 50 workers, before adding a supplementary staff of 50 in November and it anticipates having some 500 employees by February next year.
Corrigan said the goal is to utilize 75% of the work stations by June/July of next year, by which time it is aiming to have about 1,000 employees.
The first set of employees are bilingual and will be trained by the head of the Language Institute Cecily Bernard. Next month, representatives of a large US communications firm are expected to visit and view tests of bilingual services in Spanish and English.
Founded in 1978 by Daniel Julien, Teleperformance specializes in customer services, technical support, call centres, debt collection and social media.
