ASCENT: Antel Telecom Debuts Call Center for U.S. Carriers

Bolivia could be the next offshore destination for U.S. companies looking to outsource call center operations. Antel Telecom Inc. (Booth 101) has announced the availability of its new call center, located in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz. This is the first international call center of its type in that country.

Antel Telecom’s call center hosts about 250 employees, who support prepaid calling card operators, cellular providers and local phone companies, and financial services firms, among others. The facility has the capacity to expand operations to 4,000 positions handling tasks from order entry to full customer support functions for companies anywhere in the world.

"Antel Telecom’s call center offering in Bolivia is a natural extension of our current capabilities in South America and in other countries," said Adolfo Suarez, president of Antel Telecom, headquartered in Chicago. "As one of the leading resellers of international telecommunications traffic in the U.S., Antel Telecom is in touch with global companies all the time and we found that many of our customers were outsourcing call center work to countries that were as far away as 12 time zones with operators who couldn’t speak Spanish."

Bolivia, which is located in Central South America, southwest of Brazil, is in the same time zone as the Eastern United States.

"La Paz offers U.S.-based customers call center professionals who are fluent in both Spanish and English, the two most requested languages, and some of the least expensive labor costs on the planet," added Suarez. "Interacting with customer service representatives during regular business hours offers our customers a convenient way to update campaigns and educate operators without having to make phone calls at midnight or later."

Antel Telecom focuses on providing connections to Latin America, Central Europe, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Its customers include Latin American and European incumbents as well as regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) stateside. It is supported by Antel Holdings, which controls 11 operators in seven countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and the United States.