July 07, 2009

EXCLUSIVE: Telstra in major backdown on overseas call centre in Manila

Following hundreds of complaints across Australia from individuals and major corporations, Telstra has scrapped its offshore paging call centre in downtown Manila in the Philippines.

Since January - except for a few exclusive Australian corporate clients who complained bitterly - all Telstra Memo calls were unanswered by poorly trained Filipino staff whose skills in Tagalog far exceeded their English language ability.

Telstra customers have complained non-stopped of messages with wrong numbers, wrong names, mis-spelt and confusing word combinations being received.
The past 6 months has been utter pandemonium for Telstra customers.

The offshore experiment - which saved a few dollars for Telstra and enabled them to pay their former CEO Sol Trujillo a King's Ransom each year - has been officially scrapped.

Telstra is reverting to an Ausralian-based 24/7 operation from early August.
Consumer Watch spokesman said Telstra's decision in January to scrap its Australian Memo paging serving operation was the strangest decision ever made by the telecommunications giant.

"Sanity has prevailed in Telstra only after they realised the magnitude of their stupidity," Paul Tully said.


PAUL TULLY: paul@tully.org.au

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