Sprint Nextel to Build Kansas City Call Center

By Tracey E. Schelmetic

Editorial Director,
Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine

 

In what it intends to be a step toward improving customer service, Sprint Nextel has developed plans for a new Kansas City call center that could eventually employ 800 workers, according to the Associated Press.

 

Sprint (News - Alert) Nextel has reportedly leased 150,000 square feet in a building formerly occupied by computer company Gateway, and applied for a city building permit in late July for a facility that will ultimately hold workstations for as many as 800 agents. The building is located in the West Bottoms area near downtown Kansas City and until recently had been part of Gateway's (News - Alert) sales and service center. 

 

In addition to workstations, the proposed plan includes space for a cafeteria, a “Sprint University” training center for agents, conference rooms and an employee recreation area.

 

The figure of 800 employees is a guess based on examination of the building plans; though Sprint Nextel has confirmed that a call center is being planned, it has not commented on expected staff levels.

 

Sprint Nextel has its corporate headquarters in Reston, Virginia and its operational headquarters at in Overland Park, Kansas. Associated Press reported that Sprint Nextel executives have made improving customer service a top priority for the company, which has been struggling to keep pace with its faster-growing wireless competitors Verizon (News - Alert) and Cingular.

 

Sprint CEO Gary Forsee told Wall Street analysts in a conference call last month that he was not satisfied with the quality of customer service Sprint had been providing and that he intended to take steps to make improvements. “We had some challenges where we were not staffed appropriately,” said Forsee.

 

Of concern to the company is time-to-answer statistics and first-call resolution numbers. Sprint Nextel is striving to increase the number of customer calls answered within 30 seconds, and attempting to improve its first-call resolution, meaning that it would like to see more calls routed to the correct departments so they can be handled without the need to transfer the calls to other departments, or callbacks on the part of either customers or agents. 

 

“We have had good progress there,” Forsee told analysts. “We’re not where we need to be, but we're pretty encouraged by the trends that we're seeing.”