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Home Depot Cuts 3 Call Centers, 950 Jobs

December 05, 2007

The Home Depot Inc. is cutting 950 jobs and closing three call centers that handle orders for home installation. The company plans to shift the work from those centers to its stores and believes that this move will improve customer service.

 
According to a report by the Associated Press, the call centers in Chicago, Dallas and Tampa, Fla will close on Jan. 28. This will leave Home Depot with eight call centers in North America.
 
But this is not the first time a call center has been closed by Home Depot. In March, the company closed a call center in Addison, Texas, cutting 550 jobs.
 
The Home Depot is the largest home improvement retailer in the United States, ahead of rival Lowe's, and the second-largest general retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart. The company is based in Atlanta and it employs roughly 350,000 people and operates more than 2,227 retail stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China.
 
The Home Depot was founded in 1978 in Atlanta, Georgia by Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Ron Brill, and Pat Farrah. Home Depot's proposition was to build home-improvement warehouses, larger than any of their competitors' facilities. The call centers give price quotes and complete orders for customers order flooring and other types of home installations.
 
Home Depot has been trying to focus only on its core businesses and cut off other aspects of businesses to improve profits. In September, the company declared that it will close its 11 Landscape Supply stores. This move was supposedly an effort by the company to focus on its core retail business.
 
Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for ContactCenterSolutions. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
 



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