Vodafone NZ committed to offshoring despite Egypt chaos

Update: Monday 10am: 

Vodafone New Zealand director of service Kelly Moore said the company had been able to rush-recruit 100 extra local call centre staff to cover for its offline helpdesk in Egypt, by drafting volunteers and former employees.

Help calls should now be answered in less than a minute, Ms Moore said.

NZ ex-pat staff evacuated
Two Vodafone New Zealand staff working in Cairo, and their families, have been evacuated, along with other expatriate staff, Vodafone NZ GM of corporate affairs Tom Chignell said.

The Cairo call centre staff have been told to stay at home.

Most of their work was done in the evening, Ms Moore said, at which time a curfew was in force.

30 NZ customers roaming in Egypt

Mr Chignell said there were 30 Vodafone New Zealand customers roaming in Egypt.

The company had sent txt messages to all 30 Mr Chignell said, but had only managed to reach "four or five" by voice calls.

All of the txt messages had been received, Vodafone thought. They carried a ray of good news: the carrier is offering all 30 customers free roaming.

Committed to outsourcing
Mr Moore said that Vodafone would not reconsider its policy on outcourcing following the Egypt problems.

"Disruptions can occur anytiime caused by any event. Location not factor," Ms Moore said.

25% of service calls
Around one quarter of Vodafone NZ's total helpline calls are ordinarily handled by Cairo, Ms Moore said.

Some of the those drafted in the local call centre expansion had only had a couple of hours' training. The company was now in the process of consolidating its position.

Asked if some of the returning staff were those who had been laid off when call centre work was first offshored to Egypt, Ms Moore said they were not.

2degrees announces plans for Christchurch call centre
Telecom outsources some of its call centre work to a contractor in the Philippines.

2degrees has one call centre, in Auckland.

This morning, the company's chief executive, Eric Hertz, announced plans for a second call centre - in quake prone Christchurch - later this year.

The centre will employ around 80 staff, Mr Hertz said.

Update, Sunday 3pm: VODAFONE RESTORES EGYPT SERVICE, RESPONDS TO CRITICISM

Vodafone NZ GM of corporate affairs Tom Chignell has relayed this company statement:

"Vodafone restored voice services to our customers in Egypt this morning, as soon as we were able.

"We would like to make it clear that the authorities in Egypt have the technical capability to close our network, and if they had done so it would have taken much longer to restore services to our customers.

It has been clear to us that there were no legal or practical options open to Vodafone, or any of the mobile operators in Egypt, but to comply with the demands of the authorities.

"Moreover, our other priority is the safety of our employees and any actions we take in Egypt will be judged in light of their continuing wellbeing."
 

UPDATE, Sunday 10am: Last night, Vodafone NZ GM of corporate affairs Tom Chignell confirmed that his company's New Zealand help lines had suffered delays because of the situation.

Since 2007, Vodafone New Zealand has outsourced some of its help calls to a call centre run by Vodafone Egypt in a deal that would reportedly see 200 staff handling up to 200,000 service calls a month (see details in main article below).

"We're confirming that due to recent events in Egypt that there could be delays in answering calls for some of our mobile customers," Mr Chignell told NBR.

Beyond the communications blackout imposed by the Mubarak regime yesterday, "our [Egyptian] staff are simply having trouble getting to work," Mr Chignell said.

"We want to apologise for this situation and let customers know that we're urgently increasing the number of people in New Zealand so we can restore normal service."

Mr Chignell would not comment on the number of New Zealand calls handled by Vodafone Egypt, but did offer that "I can confirm that the volume is significant."

Vodafone NZ uses four call centres. The other three are in Auckland.

For some, the Egypt illustration has illustrated the dangers of off-shoring.

Telecom has offshored some of its call centre staff to the Philippines.

2degrees told NBR it maintains an all-local call centre operation.

Saturday, 8am: The Egyptian government has cut internet and mobile phone access for most of its population.

In a brief statement, UK-based Vodafone, which has 28 million customers in Egypt, said it was "obliged to comply" with a request from the troubled Mubarak regime to suspend service in some areas.

Anti-government protesters have been using Facebook and Twitter to organise rallies, and to get messages, photos and video to the outside world.

According companies that monitor internet traffic, almost all data traffic in and out of Egypt is now blacked out.

Vodafone NZ caught in fray
Since 2007, some Vodafone New Zealand call centre queries have been outsourced to the company's Egyptian operation (the two countries fall under the same Asia Pacific/Middle East Vodafone division). The Egyptian call centre has been the subject of frequent gripes on tech site Geekzone.

Vodafone NZ handles most queries from a call centre in Auckland.

Nevertheless, the company did post a service message on its website this morning, warning that "We are currently experiencing longer than normal wait times in our Mobile Consumer Contact Centre."

After calling the carrier's free 777 help number, NBR got through to a Vodafone service representative after spending about three minutes on hold.

One NBR reader complained he received a message requesting him to trying again later. When NBR called Vodafone NZ's 888 helpline for business customers,it was met with an automated voice message warning of delays, but was but through to a local service rep after about five minutes.

Vodafone NZ has yet to say if the call centre delays are related to the Egypt blackout.

MORE: 
Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service (The New York Times)
What's Happening in Egypt Explained (Mother Jones)
How Egypt pulled its Internet plug (Computerworld.com)
How Egypt Killed the Internet (The Wall Street Journal)