Sometimes the call center market is so robust that the people who open new centers can get taken unawares. Such is the case with one call center owner who just set up his business in Lewiston, Maine. Argo marketing owner Jason Levesque told the Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal that he was touring his new facility and helping some employees set up the network and phone line when he suddenly realized that he didn’t know where anyone had gone off to.
"I turned to look, but I couldn't see where they were," Levesque said. "So I asked my IT guy; 'Where did they go? Did you send them back to the other office?' And he said, 'No, they were taking calls.'"
It makes sense that employees might want to get to work as soon as possible, with the country still trying to recover from the economic dip that occurred in 2008. While some call centers have to shut their doors, others are opening up and trying to corner the market in one specialty or another. Some call centers are willing to take all comers, while others are looking for specific employees. Some are even becoming extremely specific by only hiring veterans.
Levesque’s call center has 90 employees spaced out over two different shifts. The call center manager said that he hopes to grow his employee base to 150 by the end of February. Levesque says that his new call center has enough room to eventually grow to 250 people if the need is there. While the space is only somewhat operational at this point, the manager says he wants to be up and running early in the New Year. The job to put the call center in cost about $2.4 million and the space takes up about 12,000 square feet.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson