When one door opens, another closes
A reader writes in to tell us that just as PAETEC is bringing jobs to downtown Rochester, Gannett is taking them out, by outsourcing customer service to Kentucky. I guess that beats moving the jobs to China, right? From an internal D&C memo:
FAQ: GANNETT’S CENTER OF EXCELLENCE WHAT IS IT?
A corporate initiative to consolidate the customer call centers of the local newspapers into three specialized Centers of Excellence to handle inbound customer calls, for a variety of Gannett publications. Rochester’s calls will be routed to the Center of Excellence in Louisville, KY. Gannett newspapers in Wilmington, Salisbury, Lafayette, Palm Springs, Visalia/Tulare, Binghamton/Ithaca/Elmira and Muncie have already moved their operations to the Louisville Center of Excellence.
WHEN WILL THIS CHANGE HAPPEN LOCALLY?
The Center of Excellence will begin handling Rochester Customer Service calls on Wednesday, October 24. The Customer Service hours will remain the same: Monday-Friday 5:30 AM to 5:00 PM, Saturday and Sunday 7:30 AM to Noon.
HOW WILL THIS HAPPEN?
For the time being, calls to the current Customer Service number (585) 232-5550 will be redirected electronically to the Center of Excellence in Louisville. A campaign is already underway to encourage subscribers to call the “new” toll free customer service number: (800) 790-9565.
“Center of Excellence” - what horseshit. Moving jobs out of town by any other name smells the same.
What’s happening in media today is that the fat profit margins (20%+) are getting whittled down by Internet competition. Gannett and the D&C are spending like drunken sailors to try to carve out a piece of the Internet pie. I guess the money has to come from somewhere, and this is one example.
I knew people would like the “center of excellence” designation.
[...] been a slow news here at the RochesterTurning Center of Excellence in Lousiville, Kentucky, so I’m going to do a twofer Thursday thing and write another post about NY-25.ÂÂ After all, [...]