The south-east of Ireland received the welcome news this afternoon that 250 new jobs are on the way at customer contact centre firm Eishtec for its sites in Waterford and Wexford by mid-2014.
The company has won another contract to provide smartphone technical support in the UK which will allow for the creation of the jobs. The new positions will support UK customers on T-Mobile plans and tariffs.
The project is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland.
“Eishtec is a remarkable example of what we are trying to achieve,” said the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton, TD.
“When the south-east’s employment difficulties hit their peak in 2011 and we sat down to address them, many people called for the Government to bring more multinational employers to the area, and we have had some important successes in that field. However, the major contribution to addressing this issue has been provided by Irish businesses and, in particular, Eishtec.
“This is an Irish company started in 2011, growing rapidly in export markets, and deriving its success from the ingenuity of its founders, the quality of the staff and the support of Government and the local community,” Bruton said.
Lean methodologies and data analytics
Eishtec, founded by Colm Tracey, Brian Barry and Heather Reynolds, started trading in May 2011 with just nine employees, but the awarding of this contract will bring its headcount, currently at 700, to 950 people by the middle of 2014. Recruitment for the new positions has already started.
“The rapid growth of the business has been challenging but not entirely surprising,” said Heather Reynolds. “Our company mission is to challenge the standards of service. Therefore, at Eishtec, we have a particular approach to providing customer service that delivers a performance and experience that our clients, and their customers, love.”
Eishtec uses Lean methodologies supported by data analytics to derive business and customer insight and drive improvements from the thousands of calls they receive each day.
This approach identifies the aspects of the contact that the customer values and reinforces them while removing the things that both the company and the customer see as waste.
“Not only are people recruited and trained to the highest level, but we also take a scientific approach to each call and the results of this are clearly seen in the how the customers view us – evidenced by sales levels and customer loyalty scores such as Net Promoter (NPS) ” she added.
“It is this higher level of performance that has driven the growth.”
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