Amazon.com Inc, the world’s largest online retailer, is planning to close several call centers in the United States in a move toward remote working, Bloomberg News report said.
The shift to remote working across most industries was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic with cloud call center companies such as Five9 seeing a boom in business.
Amazon is encouraging its customer service employees at some call centers in the country to work from home in a move that would save money on real estate.
Amazon has call centers around the US, including in Kennewick, Washington, and Phoenix that each employ hundreds of workers. Amazon.com’s call center employees make up a small fraction of the company’s more than 1.5 million workers.
The company’s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, also sells Amazon Connect software that enables companies serve their customers using remote networks.
Amazon is working with call center employees to make sure their transition to remote working is seamless, a spokesman for the company told Reuters, but did not comment on the planned closure of call centers.
The global market for call centers estimated at $339.4 billion in 2020 is projected to reach $496 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 5.6 percent over the forecast period 2020-2027.
