This First Nation community celebrated the opening of its first call centre Wednesday. Catalog Teleservices, the inbound call centre for American catalogue companies Newport News and Spiegel, now employs 20 Eskasoni band members at a former fisheries building in the community. The first call at the centre was taken April 23. The company operates a larger call centre in New Waterford and also employs remote agents who work out of their homes. In all, it employs about 600 people in Cape Breton.

“It benefited both of us — (Eskasoni has) more economic growth in the community and we have a really good pool of applicants and people that otherwise wouldn’t be able to make the trip into New Waterford to work for us,” said Trina Curry, senior manager of human resources. “They are exceeding every sales goal, every goal we’ve set for them. We have a really great, hardworking group of people that love talking to our customers.” The most recent group of six was hired last week and is undergoing training. The current space could accommodate upwards of 40 employees. Other larger locations may be available if additional space is needed down the road.

Ron Lewis, 39, has worked for the call centre for about eight months, the first six of which saw him and 11 others travel to New Waterford daily while arrangements were finalized to open the Eskasoni centre. He said he had previously done some sales work and enjoys interacting with clients. “I like talking to new people, I like helping people,” he said. “I find it will help out in the community, bring the community together more and get people off the welfare system.” ...

See the full story at The Nova Scotia Business Journal