Saks Fifth Avenue Call Center

When a customer of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York calls to inquire about the balance on her credit cards, the call is answered by someone in:

a) New York.
b) Dallas.
c) Jackson.

If you guessed New York or Dallas, you're wrong.

The call is routed to the Saks Inc. Operations Center in Jackson, Mississippi where 1,500 employees handle support operations for McRae's, Parisian, Proffitt's, Younkers, Herberger's, Carson Pirie Scott and Saks Fifth Avenue, the seven brands of department stores that make up Saks Inc.

Saks Inc., a $6 billion company, operates 360 stores in 39 states and employs 52,000 people. For all of them, the back office functions of information technology, telecommunications, credit, accounting, operations, purchasing, logistics, store planning and construction, facilities maintenance and human resources are handled in Jackson. Including the printing of more than 1 million payroll checks a year.

All 18,000 sales terminals in Saks' 360 stores are tied into the IT system there. So are 50,000 telephones and 12,000 desktop computers.

The center's location in Jackson has also been a selling point in attracting calls centers for businesses such as AT&T, BellSouth and Blue Cross-Blue Shield to the area.

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