A CALL centre company is to create more than 350 jobs at a new office in Scotland after securing a major contract with DIY store B & Q.
Motherwell-based contact centre business Ascensos has said it plans to open the new facility in Clydebank, doubling its workforce to more than 750 people.
Ascensos already provides social media support to the home improvement and garden supplies retailer, and will now handle all its customer service channels including telephone, email, web and chat services from October this year.
The new multimillion pound contract will almost double the firms’ total workforce and ensure it is on target to employ over 1,000 people by 2017.
Established in 2013, Ascensos already employs 400 staff and is one of Scotland’s fastest growing 'premier' contact centres. It already provides support for Karen Millen, Argos, Oasis and Scottish Power.
The Scottish success story was set up by Dermot Jenkinson, John Devlin and Katrine Young, who previously established the award-winning customer care provider beCogent, in Airdrie.
The company grew to be a business with 3,000 employees and Mr Devlin was promoted to the board in 2006, before it was sold to Teleperformance for £35 million in 2010.
Ascensos was granted a £1.8million grant from Scottish Enterprise when it was first established.
John Devlin, Managing Director , said: “We are delighted to be selected as a strategic partner of B&Q. We have established a great relationship with Kingfisher Group and we look forward to building on this and creating a world-class facility for B&Q, their customers and our team in Clydebank.
“Ascensos has grown quickly in the last two years and this expansion in Clydebank starts another key chapter in our success story.”
Tibor Szabo, Head of Customer Services, B&Q, added: “The warmth and positive spirit of Glaswegians has been an important consideration in choosing Ascensos and the location to take our Customer Call Centre forward. We are delighted to be expanding the work Ascensos is already doing to support our social media channels.”
The service currently provided for B&Q is a hybrid between a contact centre and digital marketing agency. Staff in Motherwell publish information and devise social media campaigns for the company, including onewhich referenced the risque Fifty Shades of Grey novel.
Mr Devlin has previously said that Ascensos benefitted from the fact it started with a blank slate, and did not have costly legacy IT systems that needed updated.
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