Call centre comes home to NZ
The Fairfax classified advertising call centre has moved back to New Zealand shores, making life easier for local advertisers.
Fairfax’s new inbound call centre, located in Palmerston North, was officially up and running on Monday.
The new Kiwi call-centre is on 0800 767 111 for all classified ads including public notices, situations vacant, wanted to buy, rentals and trades and services.
It means customers calling about classified ads or public notices will no longer be connected to Manila in the Philippines.
Head of CRM and customer data Andrew Hassan said in making the change, the company had responded to feedback from customers .
‘‘They’re showing loyalty to our publications and we need to respond to their needs.’’
The move will affect Fairfax newspapers up and down the country, including daily and community publications.
The new call centre will employ two team leaders and 18 sales advisers, who will join the 20 employees at the company’s outbound call centre, which opened a year ago, in the same building as the company’sManawatu newsroom. Fairfax publishes community newspapers such as and metropolitan dailies including as well as the Stuff and website.
Fairfax group sales director Gareth Codd said customer feedback suggested people preferred to deal with sales advisers based in New Zealand.
Accelerate 25 programme director Craig Nash said Fairfax’s decision reflected a larger trend towards call centre jobs returning to New Zealand.