Teleperformance USA and TXU Energy announced Tuesday a partnership that will add about 250 positions to Teleperformance's Abilene call center, with workers answering customer queries coming from across Texas.
"Electricity is a service business," said Dave Hennekes, vice president of residential markets for TXU Energy. Speaking at a news conference, he said Abilene operations should help "provide best-in-class service for our customers."
The jobs related to the TXU Energy partnership will pay $9 per hour, Marcie Ballard, Teleperformance's vice president of recruiting services, said in an interview. After the number of employees dipped to about 150 in October, the call center now has about 550 employees, Ballard said, including more than 20 already hired because of the TXU Energy partnership.
The additional hires are expected to be completed by early summer, she said.
Most customer service representatives at the center work close to 40 hours per week, call center manager Guy Brackett said.
Dallas-based TXU Energy says it has 2 million customers. On Tuesday, it also announced plans to have call center operations in Lubbock.
"We've actually in the past had call centers everywhere, both in Texas and some offshore and some near-shore," TXU energy spokeswoman Michelle Buckalew said in a phone interview. She said the Abilene and Lubbock centers are in addition to other call centers used by the company.
Abilene Mayor Norm Archibald also spoke at the news conference held at the Abilene Chamber of Commerce headquarters.
"Every time in our community when we have the opportunity to announce jobs, it's a great day," Archibald said.
In response to a question about the length of the partnership, Brian Bingham, vice president of business development for Teleperformance USA, said, "The initial term of the contract is three years." He added that the contract could be renewed annually, and, in his prepared remarks, said "250 is just the top of the iceberg," referring to the number of jobs.
When asked if the agreement specified jobs stay in Abilene — Teleperformance has 276 call centers in 51 countries — Bingham said the intent of the partnership is to keep jobs in Texas.
"The intent is to keep those here as long as both parties want that," Bingham said, explaining that Teleperformance would not move jobs without approval from TXU Energy. Buckalew said in an interview that Lubbock will initially have about 175 positions in a deal that does not involve Teleperformance. The company has an existing call center operation based in Irving, Buckalew said.
Teleperformance is receiving some financial assistance in the deal from the Development Corp. of Abilene, which administers the city's half-cent sales tax for economic development.
The DCOA already has paid Teleperformance $370,280 over four years under a five-year agreement signed in 2006 that authorized the DCOA to spend up to $757,000 in incentives for Teleperformance. Earlier in 2006, the company had announced plans to leave Abilene before reconsidering. It first opened an Abilene call center in 1993.
The DCOA board on Tuesday unanimously approved shifting some of those unpaid funds — not paid because Teleperformance failed to meet job creation mileposts set in 2006 — into a new three-year agreement and also allocating up to $125,000 in additional funding for Teleperformance.
"We had an opportunity to help an existing business gain a major new client, and we jumped on it," Richard Burdine, chief executive officer of the DCOA, told the board. "Now these jobs, they're not expected to pay $30,000 a year. Most of them won't. Many of them are part time."
The DCOA typically offers job creation incentives of $10,000 for jobs paying between $30,000 and $40,000 in salary and nonmandatory benefits. But for the lower paying Teleperformance jobs, the DCOA is offering only $1,500 per position.
The DCOA board also approved Tuesday spending up to $296,500 on a financial incentive package for another call center. Though Burdine declined to name the company, it matches the description of Cooperative Response Center Inc., which announced last week plans to hire between 25 and 30 bilingual customer service employees who would respond to customers of rural electricity cooperatives.
"Utilities are a big part of the contact center industry," said Paul Stockford, research director for the National Association of Call Centers, an industry group.
The length of contracts varies for call centers like Teleperformance that rely on outside clients, Stockford said.
"I think a three-year contract is great. That shows a lot of confidence on the part of the contracting company," Stockford said.
When deciding where to locate call center operations, companies ask, "Is there a workforce there," Stockford said, adding that a large number of universities can make a site attractive.
With workers sometimes paid only minimum wage, companies also seek out areas where it makes sense for workers to take those jobs, Stockford said.
"It's generally areas that have a lower cost of living" that become home to call centers, Stockford said. He mentioned Phoenix, Florida and Nebraska as areas with a strong call center industry.
Communities have been aggressive in attempting to lure call centers, especially since the most recent economic recession, Stockford said. But the deals vary, he said.
"It's all negotiated, but there's some pretty wild stuff going on right now," Stockford said.
