A contact center in Bend, Oregon is looking to more than double its current work force. Bend’s local newspaper, The Bulletin, reports that Ibex Global wants to hire more than 450 contact center employees by the fall. “This year will be the biggest we’ve ever been in Bend,” Alec Campbell, vice president of client services for Ibex (formerly TRG Customer Solutions) told the newspaper.
Ibex Global is a leading outsourcing company that is headquartered in Washington, D.C. that has been a significant employment force in the Pacific Northwest. The company currently has more than 9,000 employees spaced out over 18 different contact centers around the world, and the Bend center has about 400 people under its roof right now. Once the next hiring phase is over, it will have nearly 900.
Ibex Global will be holding training and hiring sessions from now until September. Those who are viewed as potential hires will go through a training process that will show the trainees how important it is to embrace the customer service aspects of their job. Customer satisfaction is the name of the game when it comes to call centers in the 21st century.
In addition, Ibex Global buys into the notion that a contact centers must know their custl6omers inside and out, and to get a jump on things actually started hiring last month and says it has about 75 new employees on the rolls.
The company said it is starting to pay new employees, as much as $10.50 an hour during the training process and will increase the pay to $12 an hour once the training is complete. After 30 days, workers are eligible for full benefits.
To say the least Oregon civic leaders are excited about the expansion. Ibex Global has been cited as the sixth largest private employer in the state, and has been a example to others in the contact center business of the value of locating their operations in Oregon to tap into its talent pool. And, while the company has carried a number of different names over the years, it has been in Bend in one form or another since 1999.