WESTBROOK – A call center in Westbrook is expanding to twice its size and leasing a new building in the city.
Legacy Publishing Co., which produces multimedia programs for combating problems such as defiant child behavior and substance abuse, occupies a 10,000-square-foot building on Speirs Street, but is in the process of expanding into another 10,000-square-foot building at 100 Larrabee Road, effectively doubling the company’s size.
“It’s a beautiful space,” said Michael Wilson, the company’s vice president.
The company needs the space, too. In the past 12 months, the workforce has almost doubled, from 85 to 150 employees, he said.
“We’re literally bursting out of the seams here,” Wilson said.
And it isn’t finished growing. Wilson said the company, unlike some businesses reeling from the recession, is on a hiring spree. Right now, there are open positions in sales, information technology, finance, media buying and other areas, Wilson said. In fact, the company projects another 40-50 percent growth in 2012.
“As we grow, we’re looking to expand all the facets of the company,” he said.
The company’s Westbrook location operates 24 hours a day, largely as a call center for marketing and selling its multimedia products, which are geared toward behavioral therapy, substance abuse, and other issues some families struggle with, according to Nathan O’Leary, a spokesman for the company.
The new sales positions, he said, are entry-level, while positions in marketing and other areas of the company require more training and education, he said. Most of the new positions, he said, are full-time.
To be thriving, not just surviving, is a rare thing to see in an inbound call center business like Legacy Publishing, said Keith Luke, Westbrook’s director of community and economic development.
Luke said most call center businesses are small shops that come and go at an alarming rate, and cater to a variable customer base.
“The inbound call industry changes its dynamics rapidly,” he said. “It depends upon being nimble.”
That means, Luke said, that a company needs to change its strategy when the market demands it.
“If you miss one change cycle, you die,” Luke said.
There are several examples, Luke said, of call center companies who didn’t adapt. A notable one, he said, is Listen Up LLC, of Westbrook, which abruptly closed its doors in January 2010. Published reports indicate that employees found out they were out of a job when they showed up for work to find the doors locked and a handwritten sign informing them that the company would mail final paychecks.
As to how Legacy Publishing has avoided such a fate, selling a service that remains in demand helps, and treating workers well helps, too. Wilson said the company’s surge in growth began in 2010, when company executives decided to reevaluate its corporate culture, to focus in part on making the business more attractive to work for.
“We just took a hard look at where we’ve been, and where we want to go,” he said.
Dr. Warren Lain, president of the Westbrook Chamber of Commerce, acknowledged that such a revamp was risky in the middle of a nationwide economic downturn. But if it’s done right, he said, like with Legacy Publishing, it can become the smartest move to make.
“Sometimes the bolder visions create the bigger opportunities,” he said.
Luke said the company’s expansion is a clear sign of a rare sight: stability in a call center company.
“You’re not going to see a note taped to the door in two weeks saying, ‘Sorry, no work today, we’re closing,'” Luke said.
Wilson said the company is moving about 120 employees, mostly from the sales team, into the Larrabee Road building, and expects the move to be finished by the end of this month.
Michael Wilson, vice president of operations at Legacy
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