Employees at a Valdosta call center donated thousands of pounds of goods to the food bank Wednesday.
What makes the donation even more special is the fact that some of the Fresh Beginnings employees could use the food themselves but instead they wanted to help others out.

When Johnique Grate isn't working at the busy Fresh Beginnings Call Center, the single mother is at home with her two children or at school to become a nurse. She said it was in her heart to donate food and she brought in 176 pounds of it.

"You get your blessings when you bless others, so mine are coming," said Grate.

The call center had a goal of 7,500 pounds for the drive and far exceeded it.

Two hundred seventy five employees here at the call center brought in 10,000 pounds of food.

"Everybody has rough spots in life and it's nice to help," said employee Max Hardy.

She brought in 40 pounds and she says many others there were bringing in the goods by the truck loads over the last three weeks.

"The special thing is I know what they make and I know the problems they face everyday and for them to come together and give their money in these hard times is truly amazing," said the Fresh Beginnings Call Center Director Damon Sefa.

Second Harvest of South Georgia tells us this is the largest single food drive from a private donor in the last year.

"It's just amazing," said Tamela Myers with Second Harvest. "They did this last year and now it's just totally unbelievable."

Johnique and the many employees here hope it'll help those who are hungry have a brighter holiday season.

This is the second annual Fresh Beginnings Call Center food drive. Last year, they donated about 6,400 pounds of food.

Bank of America says it will close its Wichita call center and vacate the 50,000-square-foot building by July 30 of next year.

The center has 310 employees. KAKE-TV reports the company announced Wednesday it was exercising an early lease exit option on the facility.

Bank of America moved into the call center in October 2006 after spending $10 million to renovate the space. At the time it was the biggest of the company's three national call centers and replaced a smaller one in Wichita with fewer employees.

Bank of America signed a 10-year lease on the building and received numerous incentives from the state of Kansas for keeping the center in Wichita.

Company spokeswoman Diane Wagner says the closing will allow Bank of America to save money and consolidate work at other call centers.

Verizon is planning to open a new customer service center in downtown Pittsburgh.

According to company officials, that means more than 200 full-time jobs will be coming to area.A Verizon representative said a college degree is preferred but not required for the new jobs. Job seekers with a technical background will also have an advantage.The pay scale for the soon-to-be jobs ranges from $12 to $27 an hour based on education and experience.Workers at the center, which will sit along Seventh Avenue, will help customers using Verizon's fios Internet and television services."We thought this was a good place to put a center, where we can respond to our customers quickly, and the city will benefit from the success that fios has in Pennsylvania,” said Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynskil.The center is set to open in May.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Hiroshi Takashina, Managing Director, Nikon India, said, “For Nikon customer satisfaction is extremely important. Nikon has always strived towards providing its customers with world class products and services. Keeping this in mind we have set up the call center for our Indian customers as an extension of our focus towards providing our customers with quick response time.”

The call center is a part of Nikon’s initiative towards providing its customers with the best products and services for Indian customers. The executives at the call center are trained and are also be equipped with responses to solve all customer queries. In case of concerns regarding software or any specific query, the calls will be directed to the concerned department by the caller.

The center will be available from 9:30am to 6:00pm during weekdays while for Saturdays the time frame is 9:30am to 1:00pm only. The executives have been trained by Nikon in-house team on products and services Nikon will be offering. The new center will be equipped with all the queries regarding new product launches, price of the products, Nikon store in the country, lens servicing etc.

Hiring at a fairly frantic pace, Ryla Inc. is nearly halfway toward reaching its goal of employing 600 people at its Lafayette operations.

And the 600 number might be surpassed, as the company gears up its call center facility that provides customer service.

"If we get the people, we have the jobs. If we get the applicant flow, we could do as much as 700," Mark Wilson, Ryla president and chief executive officer, said following a ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome the company to the local business community.

"We're really excited about the reputation the community brings -- the work ethic. It puts us in a place where we feel comfortable."

Alorica Inc. opened the call center in August 2009 and acquired Ryla about eight months ago.

Greater Lafayette Commerce sponsored Monday's celebration of the name change of the facility to Ryla, which is holding a job fair this week for potential employees.

"We're always excited when a business comes to our community. Especially those that are hiring," said Resa Hodnett, membership program manager at Greater Lafayette Commerce.

Lafayette resident Lana Fleming was hired by the company during the initial wave of employment on Oct. 4.

"I'm really enjoying it. I just graduated from college and they hired me as an assistant to the trainers," Fleming said. "I'm getting to apply my education to my job."

Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski attended Monday's ceremony and said Ryla is helping the city, which had an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent in September, take a "wonderful step" forward.

"This is going to be a great company, a great place to work. As we work to compete in the global economy ... we have to show we have that work force for the future."

Immediate employment opportunities are available for qualified applicants.

"We have (jobs) available now. We're in a position to hire folks today," Wilson said. We'd like to get to 600-plus in the next 30 days. We're open for business and trying to create the 'best job you've ever had.' "

Sitel, the Nashville-based call center company that took over Corning Inc.'s photonics testing center in Erwin two years ago, will lay off about 300 workers by the end of the year.

Sitel's Vice President for Marketing Andrew Kokes said the job cuts were the result of the loss of one of the center's major customers. However, he would not identity the company.



All of the affected employees were given eight weeks' notice and the company is working with the state Labor Department and local employers to provide immediate employment and benefits assistance for workers who will lose their jobs.




"Notices were sent out (Tuesday) and the action is based on unforeseen circumstances," said Kokes. "We lost one of our clients and the reduction is not a reflection of the service delivered by the employees."



In a prepared statement, Joel Campos, director of Sitel's Erwin facility, also complimented the quality of the employees by saying the Corning community has provided the company with some of the best talent and skills across the customer care industry.


Sitel offers inbound call handling for customer service requests, technical support and order taking. The company also provides outbaound telemarketing, database and list-building services and direct response marketing.


In addition to call services, Sitel provides outsourcing services for a number of business functions, including order processing and payroll management.


The privately held company started operations in Painted Post in 2008 at 101 Canada Road. Corning Inc. retained ownership of the former telecommunications building and to help the company set up shop in the 45,000 square-foot two-story building, Empire State Development provided a $1.5 million grant, plus another $750,000 from the Governor's Office of Small Cities. Sitel spent about $4 million to renovate the building and intended to employ about 400 workers.


Sitel's downsizing plans come less than a month after another call center in downtown Elmira, American Customer Care, announced its plan to beef up its head count by adding up to 100 new jobs. American Customer Care employs about 140 people at the Iszard's building in downtown Elmira.

4More Appointments, Inc. confirmed today their new marketing protocol for 2011 will be dubbed, "Call Center in the Box." The format is a compilation of call center services, email extraction and high volume e contacts for business owners. "We would love to thank our Swedish counterparts Anders Person and Ake Johansson for their commitment over the past few months. There were several stamps in the passports getting Call Center in the Box off the ground," said Richard Pamenius, executive VP, "but I think we have finally arrived at a solution that both maximizes penetration and provides a seamless CRM interface for our clients."

The marketing format is designed to run on a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service and provide the user a real time interface with their prospective new clients. The service will be able to extract emails by the thousands, send these prospects a simple introductory e contact and be loaded into a predictive dialer for call routing. The simple format will allow clients to choose marketing campaigns on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. "The new upgrade will improve performance in almost every dimension of our client's business model, without raising our prices a dime," Pamenius was quoted.