Airport Highway call center seeks 100 to fill jobs

A Toledo company that answers calls generated from infomercial pitches plans to add more than 100 jobs immediately to its Airport Highway call center, company officials said this week. 

Universal Marketing Group works with companies that sell as-seen-on-TV products, including the P90X and Insanity workout programs, the NuWave Oven, and MyPillow. Callers seeking to place orders for those products are directed to one of several call centers their parent companies use, said Greg Borer, scheduling manager for Universal Marketing Group.

Based on Universal Marketing Group's performance, their customers want to put them at the top of that call center list, Mr. Borer said. It's also the industry's busy season. 

"In the winter time more people are indoors calling in on infomercials. The grander, larger scale is we're one of many call centers that compete for our clients calls. Our performance here — higher closings, larger orders, generating more revenue for our clients — they want to send us more phone calls and we're looking to take them."

That means the company needs more employees answering phones. 

Officials say they plan to hire at least 100 new workers and likely more as quickly as possible. Between 50 to 75 of those people are expected to be full-time employees. The 10-year-old company currently has about 150 employees. 

Mr. Borer said UMG is solely a direct response marketing company, meaning that employees handle inbound calls only and don't make cold calls to potential customers. The call center operates 24 hours a day and can have as many as 150 employees answering phones at any given time. 

Wages are commission based, but employees are guaranteed at least $8 per hour. Mr. Borer said on average employees are paid between $11 and $15 an hour. 

In spite of the growth of Web sales and the short shelf life of many products sold through infomercials, the business is growing, Mr. Borer said. 

"Infomercial life span is usually two years or so. We're constantly getting new clients and new products as other ones fade out," he said. "It's an ever-changing, growing industry."

The company intends to start filling openings now. Applications are available through the company's Web site, UMG1.com.