West Corporation

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West Corporation (formerly West TeleServices) (NASDAQ: WSTC) provides outsourced customer relationship management (CRM) services based in the United States. West Corporation is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. and currently employs upwards of 27,000 people. The company has locations spread widely throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

[edit] History

1986 – West Corporation was founded as an inbound telemarketing service. Initially West was made up of a number of call processing centres utilizing "agents" and sophisticated call processing technology.

1989 – With the introduction of the now widely used Interactive Voice Response (IVR) processor the company was able to establish itself as a recognized leader in the industry. Not too long afterward live-operator, outbound teleservices were being offered to large volume sales campaigns.

1990s – The company went public in 1996, but the co-founders retain ownership of approximately 70% of the company. With introduction for the ability for full account management and integrated customer care support allowed large clients who employed West Corporation to expand their own customers need for support. This led to a "boom" in the customer service industry especially large companies and even more so telecommunications companies. In more recent years the addition of natural language speech recognition systems to the older IVR platform as well as a range of internet based customer services platforms have also increased the before-mentioned "boom" in the industry.

2004 – The company opened a branch in Makati City, Philippines.

[edit] Operations

West Corporation services include processing of customer initiated contacts, automated voice response services and direct marketing services, over the telephone and Internet. Today many of North America's Fortune 1000 companies are aided by West and other companies alike in the growth of not just the business at hand, but the telecommunication industry in a whole. West has built a network for business solutions through inbound/outbound, interactive, internet, collections, and conferencing services. By doing so the corporation is a definitive and well known leader for the provision of care services. Recent growth has been largely through acquisitions; between 2002]] and 2004, West acquired Tel Mark Sales, Inc, Dakotah Direct II, LLC, Attention, LLC, and Intercall. As of 2003, they had approximately 24,000 employees.

Every year 20 billion minutes of telephony based transactions are processed through West's teleservices for today's leading companies. West also has recently entered in the technical support arena by providing out-source customer and technical assistance for many major internet service providers, such as Earthlink and Yahoo!/SBC.

West is also a third-party vendor for Cingular Wireless, and provides Business End User Care and National Business Ordering centres in Victoria, British Columbia and Reno, Nevada. The Victoria call center has 24 hour International Wireless Care, and GSM/TDMA Business End User Care. On August 30, 2004, with the exception of International Wireless Care, the entire center was switched over to Business End User Care from Customer Care. At this particular centre, West employs approximately 1000 people. This includes Team Leads,Operations Supervisors, Operations Managers,Maintenance, Human Resources, Training, Payroll, and Customer Service Representatives. The Victoria location has received numerous compliments from Cingular. They have considered this location to be the best out of all the call centres established by Cingular including their own.

On May 31, 2006 West, which has been publicly traded since 1996, announced a "Recapitalization of West Corporation by an Investor Group Led by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Quadrangle Group". "The board of directors of West Corporation, on the recommendation of a special committee of independent directors, has approved the merger agreement and recommends that West's stockholders adopt the agreement."[1].