SILVER CITY — Imagine a day when you crawl out of bed, grab a cup of coffee and stumble to work in your pajamas. Your first customer orders a Big Mac, fries and a drink, but you're sitting in your living room sipping coffee.
Sounds more like you're still in bed dreaming, but in reality that is the kind of job opportunity coming to Silver City on July 31 when Verety LLC holds a job fair.
At a time when many in the community have call center training and are soon to be out of a job, Verety's move into Silver City is a welcomed one. "I think it is a good initiative. It is going to tap into other types of job seekers — stay-at-home moms and college students, seniors and others that want to work from home on flexible basis," said Bonnie Zelinko area director for the New Mexico Workforce Connection Center. Zelinko said the Department of Workforce Solutions is helping Verety set up the job fair and said she feels that with Teleperformance closing its doors, the job opportunity is not only good for Grant County, but desired. "When we did our assessment with Teleperformance, over 100 responded and a big percentage said they would like to work out of their homes," she said.
The company aims to hire 100 to 150employees and is interested in bilingual employees — offering $7 to $7.50 an hour for English-speaking only and $8 to $8.50 an hour for bilingual employees. Chris Daly, vice president of Business Operations and Planning, said the company began in 2004 with a call center-type structure, but soon moved to a work-from-home model with the advance of the technical age and growing concerns over fuel prices. The company currently serves one client, McDonald's, and employees about 350 across the country who work from home and take orders over the Internet.
"The way the system works is, when a car pulls up to a drive-through box, a signal is sent to our call center, which is patched to the first available specialists," Daly said. "Because we have so many there is no wait time." Employees are called Remote Order Specialists and use a computer, supplied by Verety, that displays all the menu items, prices, specials and any unavailable items at the store they are connected with. The specialist takes the order and the information is sent to a digital screen at the store where on-site employees prepare the order.
Daly said the business was started via Internet to help retain employees, who tend to have longer tenures when they can work from home. She said there are many benefits of Verety's service to such fast-food chains such as McDonald's. "There is a lot of pressure on a cashier and a lot of things happening at once," Daly said. "There is a big drive in the industry to keep customers happy. This way the employees can focus on their roles and ensure orders are filled correctly and they can provide friendlier and more accurate service." She said the out-sourcing of the job of order-takers also helps fast-food chains in the personnel department. Typically turnover in fast-food chains is high and by out-sourcing this step in the process, the employees on site are free to do other tasks.
"We tend to have much higher retention and are able to give the employer more tenured people," Daly said.
Quality service sounds like an issue with this business model, but Daly said employees get two weeks of training and then there is staff that randomly monitors transactions to ensure quality of service. McDonald's is currently Verety's only customer, but Daly said the company has huge plans, including growing its staff of 350 by a factor of 10 in the next year. McDonald's spokeswoman Danya Proud said the call center approach to customer service is currently only being used at a small number of locations, but is so far proving a positive.
"The call center test represents a very small number of restaurants and is just one tool McDonald's USA is evaluating to improve our customers' restaurant experience," said Proud in a released statement. "We continue to learn from the test and results so far have been positive. No final decision has been made regarding adding additional call centers or restaurants."
Verety employees typically work a 32-hour work week, however, because it is all from home they can pick and choose their hours with the 24/7 service the company provides. "Because of the time zones there is a big opportunity to pick your hours," Daly said. "We have stay-at-home moms who work a few hours in the morning and then, after the kids are put to bed, work a few more hours each evening."
Currently the company is working with Eastern New Mexico University's Roswell Branch as a training site for employees, but will soon have a training location open in Silver City through Western New Mexico University. Linda Kay Jones, WNMU acting vice-president of Institutional Advancement, said the university is pleased to be working with Verety by providing training space.
Employees spend three days in classroom training then another week working on site to ensure they have the system down before taking their company-provided computer and going home. The computer can even be used for personal use.
"The computer has two sides. You log in to one side to work and then you can log in to the other to surf the Internet or for the kids to do their homework," Daly said. The only requirement for employees is to have access to DSL Internet services and the company pays a reimbursement that typically covers most the cost of the service. Daly said the company hopes to recruit a strong load of students at the July 31 job fair and begin training by the end of August.
Levi Hiss can be reached at lhill@scsun-news.com
If you go:
What: Verety Job Fair
When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. July 31
Where: Grant County Administration Center, 1400 Highway 180 East
Information: Verety at 1-888-206- 3038 or www.verety.com or the Silver City Workforce Connection Center at 538-3737