How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - JA$30 Million DHL Call Center possibly with Drone Support as E-Commerce Expands

“It's all about selling on the phone. So we do all the inbound and outbound [calls] where we are selling... DHL services”

DHL Jamaica General Manager and Caribbean Commercial Director Donovan James commenting on Tuesday January 13^th 2015 on DHL's JA$30 million Call Center

More interesting News in the Call Center World, albeit on a very small and private scale.

Deutsche Post aka DHL, the Courier Service company based in Germany, has expanded their Jamaican Operations with a JA$30 million investment in a Call Center to handle their rapidly expanding business as reported in the article “DHL opens $30-m call centre in Jamaica”, published Wednesday, January 14, 2015 By STEVEN JACKSON Business reporter, The Jamaica Observer.

The company, which started back in 1988, now has 93 employees, up from the 73 employees they had, as the new Call Center means they've employed some 30 new Call Center Agents. DHL Jamaica is the company’s biggest Caribbean operation, besting the other thirty (30) territories where DHL does business.

DHL’s Call Center – Jamaica as the Call Center’s Location as Business Expands

Business must really be booming, as they've also increased their rates by some 4.9% effective January 2015 as part of its annual adjustment across the globe.

Clearly, they have loyal customers who don't mind paying extra for what may seem to be a great Courier and Package Delivery company, for whom they're trying to increase their phone base sales efforts, to quote DHL Jamaica General Manager  and Caribbean Commercial Director Donovan James: “What we had before was people in different countries around the Caribbean. It didn't lend itself to a real focus to sales, increasing revenue, productivity, and so forth”.

Interestingly, they could have gone elsewhere but they chose Jamaica, apparently because we provide low-cost, highly motivated labour desperate for work, a sentiment derived from the words of DHL Call Center Project Manager, Valerie Blandin, quote: “We had the option to set up in another country, but we chose Jamaica because of the skills of people, the good education, the potential of the country... and the work ethic”.

This is basically an Outbound Call Center, with a focus mainly on sales and following leads from a lead list, mainly their current customers and new business and converting them to sales as noted in the article “DHL Centralizes Regional Sales Operation In Jamaica”, Published Friday January 16, 2015, by Neville Graham, the Jamaica Gleaner.

The Call Center will also undoubtedly handle the tracking of inbound and outbound deliveries, both in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean.

DHL's JA$30 million Call Center - Jamaicans still chosen over other regions as DHL Expands

The Call Center appears to be justified base on double digit increases in Package and Courier delivery business in Jamaica and the Caribbean as per the words of DHL Express Managing Director Reiner Wolfs, quote: “2014 was a challenging year, but we had double-digit growth. In some markets we grew 20 per cent. So we certainly expect an incremental growth from the telecentre. Again, we expect double-digit growth over and above what we had last year for the teleservice channels as a direct result of this centralization”.

Indeed, as based on the following Stats, expansion was on the Cards:

1.      20% of Caribbean Revenue comes from DHL Jamaica

2.      26% of volume of shipment for the Caribbean comes from DHL Jamaica

3.      34% of weight in kilograms shipped to International destinations comes from DHL Jamaica

Regionally, the Caribbean is equally profitable for DHL, which explains their presence in the Caribbean:

1.      49% of the packaging business in the Caribbean and Jamaica is DHL

2.      66% of outbound packages are documents

3.      96% of inbound packages are non-documents 

This suggests that Jamaica is slowly becoming a E-Business sellers market, selling items abroad, most likely via EBay Accounts as described in my blog article entitled “How to make money as an EBay Seller online - Everything in Jamaica from Rare Coins to Unique Craft Items”.  In fact, it might be via DHL that many Jamaican stores in the US of A and Canada get their genuine Jamaican Supplies!

It also indicates that more persons are opting to receive their important documents via Courier Services instead of via Registered mail from the Jamaican Postal Service.

Also, at 49% of the Caribbean and Jamaican Packaging business, this puts them in direct competitor with Mailpac, currently the largest Courier and Package Delivery company in Jamaica as per my research in my blog article entitled “Mailpac's Dealbug takes the guesswork out of Online Shopping - Same Day Drone door-to-Door Courier services to Jamaicans as Mailpac learns How to Train your Dragon 2”.

So will this new Call Center herald DHL's introduced on of Drones Delivery in Jamaica, especially a they're been testing the idea in Germany back in September 2014 as noted in my blog article entitled “DHL Parcelcopters make deliveries to Juist off Germany’s coast – Why Progress of Drones in West slower than in the East for same-day delivery”?

Jamaica would be the perfect place to do this, especially as their competition, Mailpac, might have plans to deploy Drones to do 30 minute Deliveries anywhere in the island. Stay tuned as this story develops.

Here's the link:

DHL