16 Companies Announce Major Call Center Expansions in Q2 2019

Almost 30,000 call center jobs were announced in the second quarter of 2019 led by big name companies such as Amazon, Uber, Allstate, Ford, T-Mobile and Wayfair. These call center jobs were at 77 call center sites in onshore, nearshore and offshore locations. Companies continue to invest in their call center operations and implement site selection strategies to optimize their call center footprint. To help you see where these companies are expanding, Site Selection Group has summarized some of the bigger announcements and outlined some strategies to consider before making your next call center site selection decision.

Project announcements will impact call center saturation rates

As analyzed in our 2019 Call Center Saturation Report released earlier this year, call center saturation continues to be a major concern for companies as they consider their location options. The rule of thumb is that labor markets will have between 1% and 3% of a labor market employed in call centers. A labor market with less than 2% saturation is considered a desirable labor market to expand due to the market being less competitive. However, when a labor market reaches a 3% or greater saturation rate, these labor markets are labeled as “saturated,” which often leads to higher employee attrition, wage escalation and labor availability concerns as call center employers begin to compete for talent. You need to carefully assess the saturation rate and the competition prior to making your final site selection decision.

16 major global call center expansions announced in Q2 2019

This quarter had some big announcements across various industries including e-commerce, business process outsourcing, financial services and healthcare. The following 16 companies are highlighted for Q2 2019 to help you keep abreast of the latest call center expansion announcements.

24-7 Intouch

Fast growing business process outsourcer, 24-7 Intouch, has expanded its nearshore footprint with the construction of a call center in Bogotá, Colombia.  This 48,000-square-foot facility is the company’s 17^thcall center facility.

Accenture

Accenture continues to expand in San Antonio, Texas. The company currently employs more than 1,300 people at its two primary San Antonio locations and recently announced plans to invest $5 million and add 500 full-time jobs over the next four years.

Allstate Insurance Co.

Allstate announced a major expansion in Irving, Texas, with plans to hire 1,300 new employees and invest $11 million over the next five years. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who announced the expansion, said the company will receive a $2.6 million grant from the Texas Enterprise Fund, the state's business incentive fund. To receive the grant, Allstate must create at least 1,300 jobs by the end of 2024 and maintain the jobs through 2025.

Amazon

Amazon announced the creation of 3,200 jobs in addition to the more than 1,800 jobs created in 2018. The jobs will be based in Amazon’s dedicated customer service centers in Cebu and Manila, Philippines.

Chime Solutions

Chime Solutions, an Atlanta-based business process outsourcer owned by Mark Wilson, will open a call center with 500 employees initially and plans to expand to over 1,000 employees. The new call center with be strategically located in southern Dallas in a massive redevelopment project of the former Red Bird Mall.

Conduent

Conduent announced a massive expansion in Montego Bay, Jamaica. They plan to create over 2,000 new jobs by early 2020. The new building will bring the total space occupied by Conduent to 200,000 square feet within the business park.

Ford Motor

Ford Motor will be opening a new call center for more than 500 employees. The facility is at 5959 Corporate Drive in southwest Houston. It will mainly focus on helping people who own Ford trucks.

IBEX

IBEX, one of the largest business process outsourcers, is opening three new call center sites in the Philippines. Two of the sites are in metro Manila and the third is in Bohol, a provincial island in the Philippines.

KM2 Solutions

KM2 Solutions, one of the largest nearshore business process outsourcers, has expanded its call center operations in Bogotá, Colombia, with the launch of a new call center. The expansion comes a year after the company established operations in the country. The new call center will occupy 27,000 square feet and accommodate more than 800 agents.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is expanding in Omaha, Nebraska, and will build a new office campus. The company will increase its workforce from about 450 today to potentially 1,000 people or more by 2021, when its new two-building complex is finished.

PharmaCord

PharmaCord, a health care solutions provider offering customized patient support services for the life sciences industry, announced plans to establish operations in Jeffersonville, Indiana. The company plans to create up to 850 new jobs by the end of 2023. They will invest more than $52 million initially leasing two floors at America Place's Gallery Building and later constructing a new 80,000 square foot facility.

Teleperformance

Teleperformance, one of the largest global business process outsourcers, announced a new 1,124 employee call center in El Paso, Texas. They will invest an estimated $6.7 million in the new facility. 

T-Mobile

T-Mobile announced plans to potentially create over 1,000 new jobs in a new customer experience center in Kingsburg, California.

Uber

Uber is opening a second call center in the Philippines in the Clark Province. The new “center of excellence” will support services worldwide and supplement its existing site in metro Manila that was established in 2015. They expect to create over 300 jobs by the end of the year.

VXI Global Solutions Inc.

VXI, a large business process outsourcing company, has opened a new $3 million call center facility in Clark Freeport Zone of the Philippines. It plans to create over 2,000 jobs in the region.

Wayfair

Georgia Gov. Brian P. Kemp announced that Wayfair will create 500 jobs and invest more than $8 million in a customer support facility in Athens, Georgia.