Charter Says It's Shifting and Expanding Its Call Centers to Keep Up With Its Changing Business, Has No Plans to Move Them Back Overseas

Having struggled under the language barrier to communicate and get things done with our previous wireless carrier's far-flung call center operation, Next TV has been, so far, pleased with the ease of interaction when dealing with Spectrum Mobile’s domestically situated support team.

So we were a bit concerned to see a report this week indicating that 173 Charter Communications call center employees in Milwaukee were being laid off amid a facilities closure. This followed a similar Charter Spectrum call center shuttering in Cincinnati involving more than 200 workers in December. And another closure in Syracuse, New York, in July claiming 273 jobs.

Also Read: Charter Reports Video, Internet Subscriber Losses for Q4

Back in 2017, amid the regulatory approval phase or its $55 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Charter pledged to create 20,000 new jobs, a declaration that included the repatriation of its overseas call centers.

Do the closures mean that Charter's shifting those jobs back overseas?

Charter press reps gave us an emphatic "no" on Thursday.

“We have long felt that in-house employees will be better-trained and better-skilled, and ultimately longer-tenured, and will provide the best service,” a rep told us via email. “That belief underlies the commitment we made to bring service in-house and on shore after the transactions with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.”

Another company representative told us in the same thread: “We open, move and close [locations] based on the demand and product focus — for instance when mobile launched, we needed to ramp up specialists. And then when it really took off a couple of years ago, we had to expand our centers to accommodate [that]. We have also closed smaller centers to expand centers in more geographically central locations.“

Back in June, Charter announced a new 88,000-square-foot call center facility, staffed with around 400 workers, in Amherst, New York.

Other new customer support locations have been opened in Charlotte, North Carolina; El Paso and San Antonio, Texas; and Overland Park, Kansas, Charter told us.

“In a few cases, we have transitioned work to other centers that are larger or have greater potential and capacity to grow, and it’s more efficient to share information, training and technology with our representatives at these larger centers,” Charter added.