Teleperformance USA is answering the call for its largest client.
The Salt Lake-based company said Tuesday it will open a new customer-care center in Lindon that it hopes soon will employ up to 1,000 people to handle calls for a wireless phone company.
Teleperformance officials said they hope the 40,890-square-foot center at 380 Technology Court will open Tuesday with 200 people starting a four-week training period and that the facility will grow by that same number each month.
"Provo has been an excellent market for us for about nine years. We have a smaller center there," said Carrie Bohren, vice president of recruiting, training and human capital resource management. "We have a very large client that continues to expand for our organization. It's about 53 percent of our company right now. Due to Provo's success, they want us to expand in that market, so we chose a center in the Lindon area."
With about 420 seats, the facility can accommodate 800 to 1,000 agent and management positions. It will be entirely dedicated to the wireless company, which has asked Teleperformance to keep its identity secret, and will handle only inbound calls.
"We're taking care of all of their wireless customers," Bohren said. "If they have billing questions, if they want to add services to their plan and phone, if they want to change any of their plan types, add a family member — we take care of all of that for them."
Three or four years ago, about 80 percent of the company's operations involved outbound calls. A turnaround since then means that now about 90 percent are inbound. "That's a huge shift in that amount of years," she said.
Ramp-ups at other facilities usually have yielded about 125 new staffers per month, but the company hopes 200 people apply to start Tuesday.
"We are looking to promote management from within, as we always do as a company, so the individuals who get into the training class by Nov. 1 will be some of the first-round picks for the supervisors, quality assurance staff, etc. There are some great immediate opportunities for advancement," Bohren said.
"That (initial 200) gives us that good base to pull from for management. The lower that number, the harder it is to move people up as quickly as we want to."
Applicants for full- and part-time positions may call 866-509-7161.
Workers will begin with four weeks of classroom training, followed by two weeks of a "learning lab." They will earn up to $9 per hour in base pay and an "hours" bonus. But sales bonuses typically equal about $400 per month. A Salt Lake center employee regularly earns $1,000 to $1,200 in such bonuses, she said. "The harder you work, the better you do, and that's not counting contests that we do," Bohren said.
Teleperformance USA has 17 facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Asia, including four existing contact centers in Utah. The largest Utah center is an 845-seat center in Ninigret Park in Salt Lake. Others are a 400-seat facility elsewhere in Salt Lake, a 245-seat facility in Clearfield that also is ramping up employment and the 120-seat facility in Provo.
Teleperformance USA is the largest subsidiary of SR. Teleperformance, which has 179 contact centers in 38 countries and employs about 45,000 people worldwide.
"Since our founding here in 1993, we have been committed to expanding our presence in the state of Utah based on the availability and quality of great people. We are proud to be one of the largest employers in the state," Teleperformance USA's chief executive officer, Dominic Dato, said Tuesday in a prepared statement. "We, and more importantly, our clients, continue to see our Utah operations as a strategic advantage in consistently meeting high customer satisfaction expectations. In fact, we already operate a very successful center in the Provo area, and the new Lindon facility is a direct result of these factors."
Bohren said Utah's communities "are the reason Teleperformance USA is as large as it is today and the reason we're so successful."
"This community grew this company," she said. "We just need more talented people in addition to what the Wasatch Front has already given us."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com