Call centers in India closed

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has closed all of its call center operations in India, acknowledging that many customers don’t like having their reservations calls routed to foreign countries.

Delta chief executive Richard Anderson said in a recorded message to employees that it moved all calls out of India in the first quarter of this year. The company still has centers in Jamaica and South Africa, and “they work very well,” Anderson said.

Delta contracted with overseas call center facilities in India in 2002, saying the move would free up its own reservations center employees to handle other customers’ needs and save millions of dollars.

But this week, Anderson said “the customer acceptance of call centers in foreign countries is low and our customers are not shy about letting us have that feedback.” Some companies have particularly encountered backlash to the use of call centers in India.

Delta has more than 4,500 call center employees in the United States, including more than 1,000 in Atlanta and Augusta. The Atlanta location is Delta’s largest call center in the world.

In 2002, Delta had more than 6,000 call center employees in the United States. Since then, it has closed some of its domestic call centers and added a surcharge for phone bookings as it pushes customers toward Internet bookings, which cost the company less.

Although the pullout from India may not create a significant number of additional Delta jobs in the United States, Anderson said, “in this tough economic time, call volumes will decrease due to lower demand,” and the company can reduce staffing overseas rather than in its domestic call centers.

Delta has been shrinking its call center operations in India over the years, ending some of the contracted call center work there in 2004. And in 2006, Delta said it would reduce its operations outsourced to India because of a drop in call volumes.

Delta is also bringing other work back in-house, including some maintenance work that merger partner Northwest Airlines had outsourced, as well as cargo handling. At its Salt Lake City hub, the company is transferring some jobs from Delta Connection carriers to Delta.

The airline has also been offering voluntary leaves to flight attendants and offering airport customer service employees incentives to transfer from overstaffed locations to understaffed locations. Delta also offered buyouts across the company earlier this year.

Last week, Anderson told employees, “We’re doing the very best we can to be certain that we don’t have layoffs of our frontline employees as a result of the difficult economy.”