Outbound Call Center Featured Article

T-Mobile to Upgrade Contact Center as Merger with AT&T Rolls On

By Brendan B. Read
Senior Contributing Editor

Upgrading a contact center when its owning firm is in the midst of a merger may be a strange move; for if most mergers are any indication, it leads to consolidation of facilities like contact centers to cut costs and increase profitability. Especially as other feature-rich, less expensive and increasingly customer-friendly methods such as inbound and outbound IVR/speech recognition and web automated and social community self-service take hold and eat away at call volumes.

On the other hand mergers do take a while to consummate, and sometimes break up before or on the altar. And businesses that generate call and contact volumes go on, and must be effectively handled to keep existing customers loyal, attract new ones, and grow revenues that together reinforce the financial case for the deal.

Such is the case of T-Mobile, which is being acquired by AT&T (News - Alert) for $39 billion. The Nashville (Tenn.) Business Journal reported on March 23 that the former carrier has received a building permit for $6.8 million in switchroom interior upgrades, one day after the merger announcement.

“A T-Mobile (News - Alert) spokesperson has not yet replied to a request for comment concerning the building permit,” said the paper.

What the future has in store for the contact center staff there and at other locations has still not yet been decided, and will probably not be for some time.

The Nashville Business Journal reported on March 22 that the planned deal “has left more than 1,200 T-Mobile Tennessee call center employees in the dark. Currently, there are 680 workers in Nashville and 630 in Chattanooga. But a spokeswoman for T-Mobile would not speculate on their fate.”

In response to an inquiry about those jobs, a T-Mobile spokesperson said, "Making this combination a success will require the talent and commitment of T-Mobile USA employees. The transaction must go through a regulatory review and approval process and we expect the review to take approximately 12 months. Until this deal is closed, we remain an independent competitor to AT&T. There is no change in service for our customers, and we remain committed to ensuring that our customers have the best experience possible using T-Mobile USA products and services."

“Broadband is a critical piece of infrastructure for economic development,” Gregg Morton, AT&T Tennessee president, told the Nashville Business Journal yesterday.