CORRECTION: Call Center Brings 400 More Jobs
By William Pack, San Antonio Express-News
Jun. 27–The San Antonio Express-News story slugged SN-CALL-CTR-20060626, filed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, was incorrectly dated June 26. It should be dated June 27.
Please kill the original and use the corrected story below.
Call center brings 400 more jobs
By William Pack
San Antonio Express-News
Jun. 27–Customer service and business processing company Afni Inc. will open a call center in San Antonio that is expected to employ 400 people by August 2007.
Afni officials and the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation announced Monday that the company had chosen San Antonio for its 12th facility after a year-long search. The inbound call center is expected to start operating in September.
“We studied locations throughout the country, looking for the most feasible location for our new call center facility,” said Afni Vice President of Call Center Services Michael Garner. “The quality of employees that we seek to hire at Afni is readily found in the San Antonio community. Also, the tremendous cooperation we have received from local officials makes this an excellent choice for Afni to continue its strategic growth.”
Mario Hernandez, president of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, said the center will support a contract the company has in the cell phone industry, but the customer’s name was not released. Hernandez was pleased that the city was expanding its inventory of telecommunications companies, because they are growth companies and because they fit well locally.
He said Afni, of Bloomington, Ill., is a diverse company providing a variety of communications and insurance services that are well-suited for the San Antonio work force.
“Afni is a premier employer, and we are excited to welcome them to our community,” Hernandez said.
Company spokesman Alan Angelo said the 70-year-old company has grown tremendously in the past decade and has never had to shutter any of its facilities.
“We’re there for the long term,” he said.
The company signed a five-year lease for the 32,424-square-foot facility at 1560 Cable Ranch Road near Southwest Loop 410 and State Highway 151, said John Vogel, principal and broker for Henry S. Miller Commercial, which represented the site’s owner, Air Force Federal Credit Union. Financial terms of the deal were not released.
Afni plans to invest about $2 million in the building, officials said.
The company has begun hiring training and quality managers for the site and plans to fill its management positions locally, Angelo said. It will begin advertising for the bulk of its employees, primarily call center representatives, in about three weeks.
Angelo said the company hopes to have about 50 people on board when the facility opens. Its goal is to have 400 employees at the site within 11 months of opening.
While it’s not finalized, starting pay at the center should be about $9.50 an hour, with full benefits and tuition reimbursement opportunities, Angelo said. A high school degree is the only educational requirement for applicants, though Angelo said the company would prefer employees with customer service experience.
Afni is the third call center expanding into San Antonio this year. Harris Connect announced in February that it would open a 250-person call center here, and Affiliated Computers Services revealed plans for a 600-person call center in May.
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