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AFLAC Plans 'Virtual' Facility

New location will complement existing Columbus, GA, call center.

After changing its state of domicile to Nebraska last year, Columbus, GA-based AFLAC reinforced its western migration with the announcement of a 20,000 sq.-ft. call center that will be in Omaha.

The call center, which for now will just handle phone calls but may later be expanded to handle other types of customer contacts, including e-mail and the Internet, will be staffed initially with 25 customer service specialists to handle 1,500 calls per day and about 30,000 calls per month, according to Mary Carroll, call center technical manager. "As the contact center grows, it should eventually be taking approximately 5,160 calls per day or 103,200 per month," with a staff of about 86 specialists, Carroll adds.

According to Carroll, AFLAC chose Omaha as the site for its second call center—the first one is in Columbus and handled 4.4 million calls in 2001—because of the area's extensive telecommunications infrastructure and available talent pool. "This will be a virtual call center" because "all claims calls that are received through the toll-free number will be sent to either location," she says.

AFLAC's Omaha call center will use a host of advanced technologies, says Carroll, including a call monitoring system from Avaya (Basking Ridge, NJ), workforce management, scheduling and forecasting technology from Aspect Communications (San Jose), automated recording and performance software from e-talk Corp. (Irving, TX) and electronic unit displays-EDUs, or display boards-in the call center from SYMON Communications, Inc. (Sugar Land, TX).

Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio

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