West Corporation
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| West Corporation | |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Founded | 1986 |
| Headquarters |  Omaha, Nebraska, USA |
| Key people | Tom Barker (CEO/Director) |
| Revenue | ▲ $1.856 Billion USD (2006) |
| Employees | 43,000 industry = Telecommunications |
| Website | www.west.com |
West Corporation (formerly West TeleServices) provides outsourced customer relationship management (CRM) services based in the United States. West Corporation is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. and currently employs upwards of 29,000 people. The company has locations spread widely throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
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[edit] History
- 1986 – West Corporation was founded as an inbound telemarketing service. Initially West was made up of a number of call processing centres utilizing "agents" and sophisticated call processing technology.
- 1989 – With the introduction of the now widely used Interactive Voice Response (IVR) processor the company was able to establish itself as a recognized leader in the industry. Not too long afterward live-operator, outbound teleservices were being offered to large volume sales campaigns.
- 1990s – The company went public in 1996, but the co-founders retain ownership of approximately 70% of the company. With introduction for the ability for full account management and integrated customer care support allowed large clients who employed West Corporation to expand their own customers need for support. This led to a "boom" in the customer service industry especially large companies and even more so telecommunications companies. In more recent years the addition of natural language speech recognition systems to the older IVR platform as well as a range of internet based customer services platforms have also increased the before-mentioned "boom" in the industry.
- 1995: West Teleservices began offering psychic 1900 services through a client, Access Resource Services/Quintel/New Luaderdale which became the Psychic Readers Network which used Miss Cleo as the spokeswoman. Shying away from the spotlight West took a backseat to the publicity while quietly making millions in revenue from consumers nationwide. West made a great effort to conceal their connection to the pay per call industry however.
- 2003 – The company opened a call centre in Victoria British Columbia, Canada, taking over the former facilities of JDS Uniphase
- 2004 – The company opened a branch in Makati City, Philippines.
- October 24, 2006 – West, which had been publicly traded since 1996, announced the completion of a recapitalization of West Corporation by an investor group led by Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. and Quadrangle Group LLC. [1].
- September 10, 2007 – The West Work At Home Agent (under the subsidiary company name of West Telemarketing, L.P.) program converts to West At Home, converting the operations to another business subsidiary (West At Home, LLC), as well as converting its staff, formerly independent contractors, to direct employees of the new subsidiary company. Some former independent contractors were not selected to continue (and thus their contracts were terminated) as staff on a state-by-state basis, including large numbers of contractors in California and Pennsylvania. This was most likely due to certain state regulations.
- March 11, 2008 – The company announced that the Victoria British Columbia, Canada site will be closing it's doors on July 29th 2008, laying off 448 employees.
[edit] Operations
West Corporation services include processing of customer initiated contacts, automated voice response services and direct marketing services, over the telephone and Internet. Today many of North America's Fortune 1000 companies are aided by West and other companies alike in the growth of not just the business at hand, but the telecommunication industry in a whole. West has built a network for business solutions through inbound/outbound, interactive, internet, collections, and conferencing services. By doing so the corporation is a definitive and well known leader for the provision of care services. Recent growth has been largely through acquisitions; between 2002 and 2004, West acquired Tel Mark Sales, Inc, Dakotah Direct II, LLC, Attention, LLC, and Intercall. As of 2003, they had approximately 24,000 employees.
Every year 20 billion minutes of telephony based transactions are processed through West's teleservices for today's leading companies. West also has recently entered in the technical support arena by providing out-source customer and technical assistance for many major internet service providers, such as Earthlink and Yahoo!/SBC.
[edit] At Home Operations
The company uses many at home "Virtual Agents" to support many of its clients. Some of the major at home clients include:
In addition, West services many clients in the direct response industry. West's at-home agents process calls for products such as Kevin Trudeau's "Natural Cures" books, Lipozene, CigArrest, Malt Shop Memories, Playboy, and more.
