Christopher Buehrle

A US-based call centre that began operating with 400 employees in the Montego Bay Freezone just over a year ago, has added 300 workers within its first year of operation, and expects to have a workforce of 1,200 by the end of next year.

"We are well above all of our projections," Christopher Buehrle, the president of the National Asset Recovery Services (NARS), told the Business Observer last week. "What has happened here (Montego Bay) is more than what we had anticipated."

The Montego Bay facility represents the first investment by the National Asset Recovery Services outside of the Unites States. The MoBay operation - which occupies 26,000 square feet of work space - was set up at a cost of US$3 million, and can accommodate roughly 1,200 agents.

The company now provides a full slate of inbound and outbound customer services, including customer care, debt collection, data processing for several of its US-based clients, including Sprint Corporation, one of the world's largest integrated communications providers. Sprint has over 26 million customers.

Buehrle told the Business Observer that NARS' customer base expanded significantly after it made its investment in Jamaica.

"We now have credit card collections, auto collections, students loan collections, mortgage collections," he said. "All those things we did not have when we started."

NARS was established in October 1993, and is headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri, USA. Following its successful set up in Jamaica - it established another branch in Panama City in August 2004. The company now employs 1,500 persons at these three locations.

But Buehrle is confident that by December next year - based on the current growth trend - the MoBay facility alone will employ 1,200 workers, or 500 more than its present workforce of 700.

Last week, NARS announced that it would be spending roughly J$2.5 million to assist two Montego Bay institutions that were damaged during the passage of Hurricane Ivan on September 10 and 11. They are the Albion Primary and Junior High School and the Granville Day Care Centre.

The company has also provided assistance to those of its employees who suffered loss from the hurricane.

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