Amazon plans to close several US call centres

Amazon.com Inc is planning to close several call centres in the United States in a move toward remote working, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.

The shift to remote working across most industries was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic with cloud call centre companies such as Five9 Inc seeing a boom in business.

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is also encouraging its customer service employees at some call centres in the country to work from home in a move that would save money on real estate, the report added.

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 employees to make sure their transition to remote working is seamless, a spokesperson for the company told Reuters, but did not comment on the planned closure of call centres.