Downtown Lawrence call center gives details on plans to hire nearly 200

As we briefly reported Friday, there are more than 100 new jobs coming to a Lawrence call center. Well, now we have a few more details about the expansion at The Results Companies.

The company, which about a year ago took over the space previously occupied by Affinitas on the ground floor of the former Riverfront Mall building in downtown, wants to fill 175 full-time positions by the middle of September.

“It could be over 200 people, if we hire some of the positions on a part-time basis,” said Kelley Rosen, director of recruiting for the Florida-based company.

The Results Companies handles customer service calls for a variety of companies, and also does “retention sales” for several firms, Rosen said. The company is hiring for inbound sales positions, customer service representatives, and technical support positions. Rosen declined to give details about the pay range for the positions, other than to say they would be competitive within the market. To give you some idea of that ballpark, the median wage for a telemarketer in Lawrence is $9.54 an hour, according to the 2012 Kansas Wage Survey, produced by the Kansas Department of Labor.

Rosen said the company is expanding in Lawrence because it recently has won some new contracts. The company hasn’t announced what companies the Lawrence location provides service for, but its Web site lists WellCare Health Plans, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, and US Robotics as firms the company has provided service for in the past.

The expansion will bring the company’s Lawrence workforce total to about 300 employees, which is what the company said it envisioned when it moved into the Riverfront space last fall.

Rosen said the move into Lawrence, which is one of 15 call centers in the U.S., Mexico, Philippines and Costa Rica, has gone well.

“Lawrence is a good cultural fit for the company,” said Rosen, who said the company likes to go to communities where it can attract customer service representatives with small town values and courtesy.

The company will be hosting a pair of job fairs in coming weeks. The company will host a fair from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sept. 12 and also from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 13. Both fairs will be at the company’s offices at 1 Riverfront Plaza.

The company hopes to have the bulk of the positions filled by the end of September.