Partner Article

New call centre to take on 150 new staff

A NORTH EAST businesswoman has launched a new call centre which expects to turnover £100,000 in its first year and take on 150 homeworkers by 2011.

Susan Lane has secured financial support from UK Steel Enterprise for her company Salcallcentre, that is training unemployed people to work from home at its Redcar HQ.

Inside three months, Salcallcentre’s four employees have answered thousands of calls for three online retailers and the firm is currently in negotiations for a major contract.

Ms. Lane said: “After successfully completing our training programme, all someone then needs to answer our calls is a computer, a headset and an internet connection in a quiet room.

“This brings our overheads down substantially and means we can compete for contracts with the off shore companies where so many call centre jobs have gone in the past few years.”

UK Steel Enterprise, the Corus subsidiary that supports businesses in steel areas, provided funding for the company to equip its training facility in Redcar.

Up to 20 people every month are passing through Salcallcentre’s free four-week training programme, working towards a brand new NVQ specially developed for the company.

Trainees are all previously unemployed and referred to the company by organisations such as Working Links, Routes to Employment and Job Centre Plus.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .