Delta To Bring Outsourced Calls Back To U.S. But Not Add Any New Jobs

This from The Consumerist blog

Delta Airlines recently announced that it had decided to move some of its outsourced call center operations out of South Africa and back to the U.S. But before anyone goes looking for a gig at Delta's phone operations base in Dallas, the airline says it should be just fine with the staff it already has on hand.

The transition of promotions and sales calls back to U.S.-based operations will happen during July and August, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The airline will continue to use outsourced call centers in Jamaica, but says they plan to eventually bring all North American calls back in house.

While Delta's operation in South Africa accounted for around 200 jobs, the airline says that its existing U.S.-based call center staff will be sufficient for handling the additional calls after the transition is completed.

Which either means that the U.S. call centers currently have plenty of free time during their workday, or — more likely — that Delta customers can expect longer waits and frustrated, overworked CSRs on the other end of the line. But at least they will get to hang up on Americans this time.

So now we can expect even worse customer service from the world's worst airline

Earlier last month, the folks at the American Customer Satisfaction Index released their latest data for airlines and fast food restaurants. And judging by the companies that came in last in each category, being the biggest doesn't make you any better.

DELTA'S DIP:
In last year's airline index, Delta was ranked fifth out of the seven major airlines on the list. But its acquisition of last year's worst airline, Northwest, didn't do its index score any favors. Delta's customer satisfaction index dropped a whopping 9.7% from last year. And since ACSI began keeping score in 1995, Delta has sunk an amazing 27.3%. In its heyday, Big D was second only to Southwest on the index.


How can a company continue to treat their paying customers with such contempt?