Kootenai County call center to add 300 agents

Center Partners will hire more than 300 call center agents over the next month as a result of new contracts with existing telecommunications clients.

The hiring is part of a rebound for one of Kootenai County’s most volatile employers. The Fort Collins, Co.-based company grew to 1,100 employees in less than 12 months, after it opened call centers in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls in 2001.

Workers took inbound calls, answering customers’ questions about their cable bills. But the loss of a large contract prompted Center Partners to close its Coeur d’Alene facility last year. The center reopened this spring, when the company received a new contract from a phone provider.

Center Partners currently employs more than 500 full- and part-time workers in Kootenai County, said Martha Lanaghen, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. After the hiring, the number will grow to more than 800 workers, she said.

The jobs start at $7.75 per hour for agents, with performance incentives. Full-time employees receive benefits.

Lanaghen said the jobs should be stable. The new contracts are long-term, and result from growth of existing clients, she said.

Most of the calls are inbound, though agents will do some follow-up calls to clients.

“We don’t do outbound, cold-call telemarketing,” Lanaghen said. “These are complicated customer care calls for a complex product, like wireless phones.”

About 1,700 people work in call center jobs in Kootenai County, with wages in the $7.15 to $10 per hour range for agents. U.S. Bank recently began hiring for a Coeur d’Alene call center that will open next spring with 150 employees.