Future seen for 018 service

The overseas investors who bought the Yellow Pages Group from Telecom two years ago always planned to offshore the directory assistance call centre, given the 018 service is viewed as a declining business.

Yellow Pages chief executive Bruce Cotterill told BusinessDay, however, he did not necessarily agree the service was a business whose time was running out.

TeleTech, the contractor running the 018 domestic calling and 0172 international calling services on behalf of Yellow Pages, shifted call centre operations to Manila earlier this year with the loss of 144 jobs in Palmerston North.

Since then there have been numerous customer complaints with problems centring on pronunciation, spelling and Maori words.  Mr Cotterill said one customer has gone as far as phoning him daily because he is not happy with the service.

Yellow Pages was sold by Telecom in March 2007 to Hong Kong's Unitas Capital - formerly CCMP Capital - and Canada's Teachers' Private Capital for $2.24 billion.

Mr Cotterill said it was fair to say the Asian and North American owners had the off shoring of the call centre in their plans when they bought Yellow Pages. Private equity owners typically look to cut costs after making predominantly debt funded acquisitions.

The 018 business was seen as a declining one, Mr Cotterill said, with more and more people carrying mobile phones and other devices which they saved commonly used phone numbers too.

Therefore the view was people were not going to need to ring a service in search of a phone number as often. However, Mr Cotterill said his own view, which he had not tested or researched, was this did not have to be the case.

"If you provide a good enough service, it shouldn't be a declining business."

Having been to Manila to see TeleTech's set up first hand, Mr Cotterill said it was a "disconnect" that it was not working.

The staff hiring process, facilities, attitudes and education levels were all impressive. No one went near a telephone unless they had been in training for six weeks. The only issues were around the Filipino staff getting used to Kiwi accents and pronunciation.

A 12 week transition process had not proved enough so another two months has been added. After this the service will be reviewed.

Mr Cotterill said he was regularly calling 018 himself and was only about 60 percent satisfied with it.

"So it's not good enough and we're doing everything we can to get it there."