INFOCISION Company opens new call center

A local telemarketer has 125 job openings in its Boardman and Austintown call centers.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
BOARDMAN -- InfoCision Management has expanded its presence in the Mahoning Valley once again with a second Boardman call center, bringing its local employment count to nearly 700.
The Akron-based telemarketer was to celebrate the grand opening this morning of its newest, 5,000-square-foot call center at 6951 Southern Blvd.
The company opened its first, 5,500-square-foot Boardman office in the same plaza last November, and the new center nearly doubles its square footage and employment totals there.
Together the two centers now employ 175, in addition to InfoCision's Austintown operation, now the company's largest call center with 500 employees.
Still hiring: Steve Brubaker, senior vice president of corporate affairs, said the company still plans to hire 125 more workers to bring all three facilities to full-staff -- 75 for Austintown and 50 for Boardman. At full capacity, the Boardman and Austintown centers will employ about 800.
Brubaker said the company pulled out of a Howland location last year after a short stay because it had trouble recruiting enough workers.
"Boardman has worked much better for us from a recruiting standpoint," he said.
The company transferred about 80 employees from Austintown when the first Boardman center opened and already has added enough new workers to more than double that number.
"We've found a very positive home in the Mahoning Valley, and we expect to continue building from here," Brubaker added.
InfoCision spends between $400,000 and $700,000 on telecommunications equipment, computers, data base and networking equipment for each new call center it opens, he said. Structural and decorative renovations for the new call center were paid for by the building owner, Handel Investments.
He said the average InfoCision worker is "approaching 40," and the company looks for career-minded people interested in long-term employment. Among workers who stay through the 30-day, paid training period, he said, the company has a 92 percent retention rate.
Pay range: Starting pay ranges from $8 an hour to as much as $12.25 an hour, depending upon the employee's experience and their work assignment.
InfoCision has five divisions. Callers in the religious, nonprofit, political and residential divisions call homes and businesses seeking contributions and recruiting volunteers; employees in the commercial division handle inbound customer calls and make telemarketing calls for companies.
Brubaker said the company has all five divisions operating in its Mahoning County centers, so managers try to place new employees in the division which best suits their interests.
The company operates 19 centers in Ohio and West Virginia and has a total work force of 2,400.
vinarsky@vindy.com