tele-net Kids
On the eastern shore of Kyushu, lies a small port city with a population of just over 60,000. Known for beautiful beaches and great surfing, it’s hard to imagine that a city like Hyuga would be home to tele-net’s latest contact center operation.
Traditionally, outsourced contact centers are located in countries like India or the Philippines, where labor costs are lower, while still providing a highly skilled workforce. And we do have a center in the Philippines for exactly that reason.
However, different markets have different needs, and serving Japanese businesses requires native speakers that understand Japan’s approach to customer service.
Because our company headquarters are based in Japan, we have many clients that are originally from there, or that have expanded to the Japanese market.
While we already have several contact centers throughout the country, our CEO wanted to expand the influence of the company to not just add value to businesses, but to also help the communities we operate in.
And that’s where Hyuga comes in.
It seems counterintuitive to set up a contact center in a place that has such a small population—contact centers are usually staffed by college students or recent graduates, and Hyuga doesn’t even have five high schools, let alone a university. However, we felt there was a situation there that might turn into a mutually beneficial arrangement for tele-net and the community of Hyuga:
Stay-at-home mothers with children.
In Japan, it is less common for mothers to return to the workforce once having children. And in a small community like Hyuga, which has limited options in terms of work and childcare, even if a mother with a young toddler wanted to work, it would be near impossible.
And that is unfortunate. Out of all the relevant work experience one can have that relates to handling customers with patience and care, tending 24/7 to a little one that doesn’t understand the concept of waiting has to be up there.
And so, at the end of 2018, we thought—why not make that possible? Why not provide a way to return to work for these mothers that have inherent customer service skills?
Fast forward 6 months, and a vacant elementary school that was scheduled to be demolished, was purchased, cleaned, and outfitted to serve two functions: a contact center on the second floor and a daycare center on the first floor.
The daycare center, while available to anyone in the community, was put in place specifically so that mothers wanting to work had a simple solution for childcare. Employees are actually able to take advantage of the service free of charge.
And thus tele-net Kids was born.
When tele-net started over 25 years ago, we honestly never thought we’d be able to grow in this way. Our goal was to provide quality customer service teams to businesses. We grew within Japan, hired hundreds of agents, and expanded operations to serve global customers.
And now, we’ve started a daycare.
Oddly enough, that last one may have been our proudest moment.
It’s only been a year since this hybrid daycare/contact center opened, but it has been very well-received by the community. A building found a second purpose, mothers have been able to return to work without worrying about childcare, and we’ve been able to increase the number of skilled agents available for our clients.
A win-win-win.
We hope to open more centers like this in rural areas as opportunities present themselves.
But until then, we’ll continue to provide the best customer service we possibly can to our current and future clients.
If you’re looking for a customer support partner, let us know! We take pride in having provided omotenashi-inspired contact center support to clients for over 25 years. You can reach out to us here!
