New call center now employs 200

Less than two months after it opened, TeleTech's new call center in Kalispell has about 200 employees and it continues to take applications for future positions.

Public Relations Director Julie Lucas said the Colorado-based firm has been very pleased, both with the community's response to the new business and the quality of the people it's finding here.

"We think it's going to be a really good fit," Lucas said.

TeleTech provides a variety of customer management services to its corporate clients, including telephone- and Internet-based call center support. It recently announced the signing of a new $150 million, five-year agreement with an unidentified corporation in the prestigious Fortune 50, together with the renewal of several previous long-term agreements that have an estimated value of $440 million over the next five years.

The company, which is publicly traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange, reported year-to-date earnings of $14 million on revenue of $787 million for the third quarter that ended Sept. 30. It currently employs about 33,000 people worldwide.

TeleTech opened its newest call center in Gateway West Mall in November. The space was previously occupied by Stream International, which closed in August 2003, after less than three years in operation.

Neither Stream or TeleTech are "telemarketing" firms. Both employ call agents who take incoming calls from the clients' customers, providing assistance on a variety of business, technical and customer-service related issues.

However, Lucas said TeleTech has a somewhat different focus than Stream did, both in terms of the clients it serves and the type of employees it looks for.

"We don't really want clients who are heavily focused in one area or another," she said. "We've found that our most successful centers have a good mix of technical and customer service positions. A lot of our agents have a mix of technical and people skills."

As with Stream and other similar firms, TeleTech rarely announces who its clients are, although Lucas did say that the Kalispell call center is serving "a major telecommunications company."

"This is our second-largest customer," she said. "The work we've placed in Kalispell is part of an eight-year contract."

Lucas said about 180 customer agents have been hired here so far. Including management positions, the Kalispell center employs about 200 people.

"I would hesitate to provide a projection [regarding future employment levels], but we're always looking for people to drop off resumes," she said. "We'll put them in the system and then call people as business increases."

TeleTech has an arrangement with Kalispell that's similar to what was provided for Stream: In exchange for a 100 percent lease rebate, the company agreed to provide 125 jobs, including 100 full-time positions, during its first year of operation. That would climb to 425 jobs and 340 full-time positions within three years, with a minimum wage rate of $8 per hour, plus a 20 percent benefits package.

If the company fails to meet the employment targets, it won't receive the entire rebate. TeleTech has also agreed to make a minimum annual property tax payment of $140,000, which will cover the city's debt payment on the 63,000-square-foot office space.

Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at bspence@dailyinterlake.com