Two hundred employees of Cable and Wireless Jamaica (CWJ) are to be made redundant today, as the company outsources its call centre.

According to the company, the move is necessary to improve its customer service as it outsources sections of its call centre operation to ACCENT, a global provider of outsourced customer relationship management solutions.

ACCENT will assume full responsibility for all incoming calls previously handled by the staff in Cable and Wireless' Kingston call centre.

A spokesperson from the company told The Gleaner yesterday that 140 of the 200 workers affected by the outsourcing have been offered jobs by the new service provider.

Redundancy packages

In addition, permanent employees will receive the full redundancy packages to which they are entitled, while contract workers will be treated in accordance with the provisions in their contracts.

In April, Cable and Wireless had signed an agreement with ACCENT for the outsourcing of a segment of its call centre operations.

At the time of the signing of the agreement, Rodney Davis, president and chief executive officer at CWJ, had said that while his management team focuses even more closely on core business, the company would be working with the experts at ACCENT to ensure that Cable and Wireless customers receive improved service.

ACCENT's first investment

"When we look at ACCENT's track record and experience, we are confident that they will be able to provide superior service for CWJ's extensive customer base and they will be a good employer for Jamaica," he said.

The agreement with Cable and Wireless marks ACCENT's first investment in Jamaica, and adds another international player to the island's growing call centre industry.

ACCENT has extensive expertise in customer relationship manage-ment, operating seven call centres in the United States and managing two international partnerships in the Philippines and Trinidad and Tobago. The company also has considerable experience in serving customers of telecommunications providers and manages the customer care function for major mobile and fixed-line companies in most of the territories where it operates.