Alorica Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based company that bought call center operator West Corp.’s client agent services operations earlier this year, plans to hire up to 350 new employees here by next year, says Rene Paiz, director of site operations for Alorica’s Spokane offices. 

“We have a base of about 450 employees here in Spokane. Once our new client groups are added, we’ll be looking to add anywhere from 300 to 350 new employees, between now and the first quarter of next year,” Paiz says.  

Last March, Alorica announced its acquisition of West Corp.’s client agent services for $275 million. It said in a press release that the purchase boosted Alorica’s total workforce to 48,000 associates operating in 73 locations worldwide. 

Alorica’s Spokane offices currently handle customer and technical service lines for two clients, the Supervalu Inc. grocery chain and AT&T Inc., Paiz says Alorica has begun hiring for management positions and creating the infrastructure for two additional clients, a prescription mail-order service and a fitness center, and is in negotiations with a possible third client.  

“We offer employees full benefits, with a starting pay of around $10 per hour for the customer service lines and $11 an hour for the tech support lines,” says Paiz. “We reevaluate those wages on an annual basis, as we’d like to stay competitive with the area’s minimum wage.” 

“There is also room for pay increases, based on an individual’s tenure with the company, as well as opportunities for employee advancement to higher, management positions,” he says. 

Paiz says many don’t realize Alorica’s business is all inbound. 

“When people think of phone services, they think of telemarketing sales, but that’s not us,” Paiz says. “We provide customer and technical service support for businesses. While we may occasionally do some light sales, those are usually products recommended to a customer as something that may benefit them.”

Paiz says Alorica’s acquisition of the West Corp. operations has increased its projected revenue for 2015 to $1.6 billion, making it one of the largest vendor call services in what is called business process outsourcing, or BPO space. 

New to the Spokane area, Alorica has taken over both former West Corp office sites here. The 44,400-square-foot downtown Spokane center is located in the Holley Mason Building, at 157 S. Howard, and its Spokane Valley offices, with approximately 44,200 square feet of space, are at 9317 E. Sinto.  

“We are still very new to this area,” says Paiz. “One of our goals is to get the company name out there through word of mouth and our donations to organizations like Unity in the Community and the Susan G. Komen walk.”

Alorica’s website says it was founded in 1999 by Andy Lee. The company provides a variety of customer contact management services such as customer care, technical support, sales, collections, and social media services for Fortune 1000 companies mainly in the communications, technology, media, financial services, government, health care, automotive, retail and consumer product sectors.

West Corp.’s vice president of investor and public relations, David Pleiss, estimates that prior to the sale, the company had been operating agent services in the Spokane area since 2002. In 2013, the company had added 200 employees in Spokane, and it added 50 more last year.

Pleiss says the company has shifted its focus to growing technology-based businesses.