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Operators in the Philippines will be handling New Zealand directory assistance calls from next year, as a result of Yellow Pages Group call centre functions being outsourced.
The outsource company, Teletech, said yesterday that about 100 Palmerston North call centre workers would be affected.
Teletech country manager Jason Lock said his company had been awarded the contract to manage some Yellow Pages functions.
It had signed a multi-year agreement with Yellow Pages Group and would manage existing personnel and facilities in New Zealand, Mr Lock said.
The change would take effect from April.
"In the initial stages, the activity and functions will be managed from Palmerston North and later from the Philippines."
The move to the Philippines would happen next year.
Mr Lock said only the 018 and 0172 directory assistance programmes would be moving overseas.
"About 100 are affected by this move, Mr Lock said. "Sitel, the current group managing the PN centre, has talked to staff."
Teletech would meet the affected staff this week.
"It gives us some time to advise staff about opportunities and about redeployment to the Philippines and, where possible, provide them opportunities beyond April 2008."
The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union said the shift would not provide a better service for customers because English was a distant third language for the people who would be dealing with calls.
But Mr Lock said the customer service work done in the Philippines was of a very high standard.
"The English language capability is strong. The Filipino culture has been influenced very strongly by the past strong American presence there.
"The Philippines is also one of the largest English-speaking countries in the world, which will surprise many Kiwis."
Their skills levels were very high, Mr Lock said.
Teletech had 15,000 employees in the Philippines, the vast majority of whom were managing technical support for English-speaking countries.
Mr Lock said there was a possibility that some New Zealand staff would be able to be redeployed in management roles in the Philippines.
"Filipino staff are mostly tertiary-educated and are tested for English language capabilities before being employed."
They were also tested in a business environment course, and a component of the course was customised to cover the New Zealand environment - dealing with items such as places, names, Maori language, culture and geography.
Mike Manson, chairman of the Manawatu Contact Centre Cluster, questioned whether the same service would be provided by foreign operators.
He said the company had excellent staff who had won an award for having the best directory service in the world.
Telecom sold the Yellow Pages to a private equity consortium for $2.24 billion in March.
- NZPA
