TAYLORSVILLE — Several thousand people have answered the call to work for a company handling millions of calls each day.
That company this week is marking its 30th birthday in Utah.
Convergys Corp., with 6,550 employees at five Utah call centers, started with one toll-free number and two clients in Ogden. Now the Cincinnati-based company provides customer care, human resources and billing services for clients in more than 70 countries.
Its Utah employees handle calls for clients in several industries, including telecommunications, satellite, technology, entertainment, health care, pharmaceuticals, financial services and direct-response marketing.
"I think there's really two elements that have to be in place to have the kind of longevity and growth we've had," Kevin L. Mansfield, director of human resources, said at a Wednesday open house at the Taylorsville center. "First of all, you absolutely have to have a quality work force to draw from and great community support. And, secondly, as an employer, you have to have a compelling reason for people to want to come to work for you.
"Convergys has been very fortunate to have both of those elements for the past 30 years in Utah."
Sonja Rowell can speak about several of those years. She started work as a phone agent in 1993 at what was then Matrixx Marketing in Ogden. Now she is a director of operations, in charge of 1,100 agents, managers and team leaders supporting the DirecTV customer service center.
"It's been a very exciting time. We've seen a lot of technology enhancements that have made our jobs easier," Rowell said. "We're able to do a better job for both the consumers and the clients with those advances, so things have gotten more sophisticated.
"But customers are always customers, and that part of it hasn't changed as much. They expect great customer service from the companies they're calling, and that's our objective, to provide that for them."
Convergys began its customer-care activities in 1976 in Ogden as Nice Corp. It became Nice/Apex in 1988 and Matrixx Marketing in 1989. Convergys was formed in 1998 with the spin-off of Matrixx and CBIS from Cincinnati Bell.
"I think if there's any misconception about Convergys it's that we're a telemarketing company, whereas the vast majority of our calls are inbound," Mansfield said. "Our outbound work is typically ancillary to the inbound customer support work we're doing for existing clients."
Taylorsville Mayor Russ Wall described Convergys as "a great business partner" for the city, where the company has about 2,600 employees.
"We enjoy having them. They employ a lot of students in Taylorsville, and because of their flex schedules, a lot of mothers can get jobs here. It's a great place. We're happy to have them. We hope they grow — double," he said.
Salt Lake County's economic development director, Dale Carpenter, said Convergys is representative of an existing county business doing well. "You've got 30 years of time and grade, as it were, and that's very impressive," he said.
"I value what this call center means to the economy of this county. It provides a lot of good jobs and a lot of upward mobility for people. I have nothing but good things to say about what they do, and I think they have a splendid reputation with respect to their clients and the service they render to their clients' clients."
Rowell said she has agents who enjoy working on the phones and have been at it for 10 years. Others, she said, started with the company and have grown into human resources, training or information technology roles. "We've been very successful at providing a good environment for people to work in and grow in," she said.
And while a work-at-home program is expected to blossom in 2007 — 120 agents in Logan already work from home, and 75 will be added in Ogden in the next two months — the Taylorsville center's human resources office remained busy Wednesday, with a half-dozen folks at just about any given time working on completing employment applications.
"There's no doubt we're very pleased with the response that we have now, and always have had, from the community," Mansfield said, "and it speaks well to what a desirable place this is to work."
While the Taylorsville site was celebrating its anniversary on Wednesday, the corporation was busy announcing its third-quarter financial results. Convergys reported net income of $45.2 million, or 32 cents per share, during the quarter, which compares with $42.4 million, or 30 cents per share, for the 2005 third quarter. Revenues were a quarterly company record of $702.7 million, up 9 percent from the prior-year quarter.
Convergys stock rose 19 cents Wednesday to close at $20.95 per share on the New York Stock Exchange. During the past year, the price has ranged from $15.32 to $21.72.
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com