Representatives from American Samoa Service Associates, the investment group behind efforts earlier this year to establish a call center in the Territory, visited the American Samoa Community College (ASCC) this past Tuesday to conduct a fact finding meeting with students from the College. The two hour meeting took place in the ASCC Lecture Hall, and was attended by several hundred students from departments as diverse as Business, English, Fine Arts and the Institute of Trades and Technology, along with members of the Student Government Association, who organized the event.

"Our group is conducting due diligence or a fact gathering.  We are not offering to set up a call center at this time," said local American Samoa Service Associates partner Avamua Dave Haleck, who was present at the meeting. "This meeting is fact finding only.  Any movement forward toward a call center in the future will be based, in part, on the results of this meeting. One of the more important factors we came to research is the English speaking and comprehension of the potential labor pool; the accent of the local population when speaking English; and, the dynamics of the potential labor pool in conversational English."

Along with Avamua, the visiting party included American Service Associates President Mark Hunsaker, along with partners John R. Dwyer Jr. and Brian O'Shea, as well as Elek Toth, Senior Vice President-Asia Operations of NCO/RMH Teleservices Asia Pacific, Inc., and the latter firm's Director of Recruitment, Arlynne Fausto. College President Dr. Seth Galea'i and Vice President of Student and Academic Affairs Dr. Kathleen Kolhoff also attended, along with many ASCC administrators and faculty. Following remarks from the guests and the screening of a video that detailed operations at a call center run by NCO Group in the Phillipines, the visitors took an extended period to converse in small groups with the students present.

During the final question and answer segment, Elek Toth and other members of the visiting team answered numerous questions about opportunities in the call service industry, and did not shy away from some of the sensitive issues associated with the attempts earlier this year to get the call center project moving. One student asked what had become of InfoTech American Samoa , the previous partner with American Samoa Service Associates, whose representative had given a similar presentation at ASCC just this past February. Mark Hunsaker explained that changing economic conditions in American Samoa had led InfoTech to withdraw from the call center project, but that his group is now working with NCO Group to research the possibility of still bringing the industry to the Territory. Another student inquired whether the pending increase in the Territory's minimum wage would influence NCO Group plans to do business in American Samoa, to which Toth replied that the wage would be just one of many factors taken into consideration before his company makes its final decision.

In regard to the visitors' primary goal of assessing the English language skills of the ASCC students, John R. Dwyer of American Samoa Service Associates made a favorable comparison between the English he heard spoken at ASCC and the speaking styles of the mainland. "Even in Hawaii , many speak with a pidgin accent, which I do not hear at all among you," Dwyer told the ASCC students. "The way in which phone operators at a call center speak English can be a crucial factor, since customers often feel ill at ease when talking to operators in foreign countries. If customers in the United States speak to operators in American Samoa , I think they'll feel confident they're talking to another American, which could be a major advantage."

The meeting concluded with everyone present tentatively hopeful that a call center in American Samoa could someday become a reality, although Avamua emphasized that the venture is still very much in the research stage. "Since this is a fact finding mission, the group was mostly interested in hearing from the students, and in
particular listening to the way they speak, as this is key to the group.  American Samoa Service Associates was not so interested in presenting all that they can offer, as there will
be plenty of time for that should they reach the decision that American Samoa will be their next location for a call center."