The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) and its shareholder ATN yesterday announced the launch of a customer service business which will see the transfer of 214 employees of the phone company.
In a statement, GTT said that all 214 persons in its Customer Care team, servicing its needs and those of other subsidiaries of ATN International (ATN) in the USA, Bermuda and US Virgin Islands, will be transitioned to and employed by the new Arrow head Communications Inc. business (Arrowhead) by June 2022.
“This will create the new heart of a world class operation that Arrowhead will continue to grow providing an expanding level of world class customer engagement and professional support services to its clients”, GTT said.
GTT said it has been actively involved in the evolution of customer service centres in Guyana, with a history that goes back over 30 years. In 2021, the statement said that ATN and GTT announced plans for piloting this new initiative just as a new GTT Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Damian Blackburn, was appointed. It said that Blackburn immediately began a 21st century customer centric transformation of GTT, by first creating business units within the company, to focus on specific customers, “while restoring care levels by training and employing more customer care agents and introducing pro-active outbound call services”. The statement said that the outbound calling service was critical to the implementation of industry sector leading digital engagement activities, like the paperless WhatsApp and E-billing service transformation, which has now been adopted by over 77% of GTT’s customers.
In Region 3, the statement said that the Arrowhead pilot created 27 jobs with plans to expand to 40 work-from-home jobs, facilitating operations for Alaska Communications Systems owned by ATN and based in the USA. Additionally, Arrowhead will also expand its provision of call centre services to Viya, ATN’s subsidiary in the US Virgin Islands. In its bid to create a transformative Customer Care team, the statement said that Arrowhead pioneered a work-from-home model.
The statement noted that GTT recently launched its flagship GTT Fibre service and embarked on an ambitious Fibre roll-out plan, including new areas in Regions 3, 4, 6 and 10, allowing for fibre to be available in over 65% of its copper network footprint by the end of 2022. It said that this rollout will enable the growth of more Arrowhead Customer Excellence roles and opportunities. The new company will initially target the creation of 100 work-from-home jobs in Regions 3 and 6.
All these initiatives in the last year have led to the creation of 99 new Customer Care roles, the statement said. It said that this represents a 66% percent increase in staffing to vastly improve the quality, timeliness, and efficiency for all clients that will use the new Arrowhead services. Over 50% of the Customer Care teams have also transitioned successfully into a flexible, work-from-home arrangement, which will be key to the business going forward.
Added to this, the Board of Directors of Arrowhead also announced the appointment of Guyanese, Shem Erskine, as the new General Manager for Arrowhead. The Board said, “Shem has operated in Client Relations and Customer Success leadership roles for in excess of 10 years. We are confident that with this appointment he will utilise his wealth of knowledge to significantly impact and advance the operations at Arrowhead.”
The statement said that Erskine has more than a decade of leadership experience in the telecommunications and Business Process Outsourcing sectors where he has built a successful career through roles in Business Sales, Client Relations and Customer Operations. In the past two and a half years at GTT, the statement said that he was instrumental in restoring the company’s service levels to industry standards, deploying critical CRM technologies, establishing, and commercializing outbound capabilities.
In an invited comment, Erskine said, “I am delighted to be leading this new subsidiary of ATN International. ATN has been committed to development in Guyana for more than 30 years and this business will highlight what is now our core competency of customer success for our clients (local and international). In the past year, we have established a business model that has already created repeated success stories through a team of talented Guyanese and the use of best-in-class technology. My immediate focus as General Manager will be capitalizing on these to deliver planned new services and attract new business. Exciting times are ahead.”
The Arrowhead business will be operational from June 12, 2022, and as well as transitioning the 214-person team to the Arrowhead entity, the following immediate priorities will be to
Develop a new state of the art physical Customer Care facility in New Amsterdam that will supplement existing facilities in Georgetown and work seamlessly with Arrowhead’s new hybrid, flexible work from home team; and
Roll-out new services and attract new clients creating job opportunities for hundreds of Guyanese in multiple Regions.
