Call-Center Company Afni Hiring 175 Web Chat Workers in Opelika, Ala.

By Jacqueline Lee
Contributing Writer

Even in a tough economy, innovation still creates new jobs. Call-center company Afni, in an effort to boost its web-chat services, is hiring 175 Web chat agents for its call center in Opelika, Ala.

Thanks to the expansion of a client program, Afni plans to hire 100 of the 175 workers immediately and will hold a hiring party at its Opelika facility from 3 to 7 p.m. on Monday, September 10. Workers should fill out an online job application on Afni’s website before coming to the job fair.

Job benefits include paid training, full benefits, flexible schedules and tuition reimbursement. Some positions may also receive performance-based incentive payments.

 Some companies depend on Web chat to increase customer volume. In an interview published on Inc.com, Alex Mouravskiy of Laptop MD+ in Manhattan says that live chat helps them to add three to four customers per day and has increased their total customer volume by 10 percent.

“The best part is these are on-the-fence customers, the people we really would have lost without the chat program,” said Mouravskiy. “It's definitely worth the investment.”

John Cooper, VP of national accounts for IceWarp (News - Alert), also touted the benefits of Web chat. “It's one of the fastest-growing technologies for businesses today,” Cooper explained. “You're facilitating customer service at a better, faster rate.”

One benefit of Web chat, Cooper pointed out, is the ability to disguise the size of your company. Your company can look much bigger than it really is because your agents can use three to four different chat identities per day.

The qualities that make an agent good at phone-based customer service may not be the right skills for Web chat. “Thinking that a good phone person is a good chat person is a mistake to avoid,” noted Mike Faith, CEO of Headsets.com.

“Good phone people are patient and relaxed. Good chat people are multi-taskers who can drive the pace needed to handle multiple chats quickly.”

For a small business that may not be able to devote employees to just customer service, interruptive Web chat technology can derail productivity. Staff availability expectations can also be high because of the 24/7 availability expected by customers.

In the end, though, Web chat can generate revenue because it connects businesses to customers with immediacy. That’s why the demand for Web chat—and for employees who can handle the task—will only continue to increase.

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