Call Agents launches in Teesside
11th Mar 2011
Call Agents: Rachel Barnes and Sharon Atkinson, founders of Call Agents UK, with their advisors Victoria Scarisbrick and Deb McGargle
Two women who are about to create up to 30 new jobs on Teesside just months after launching their company are being tipped for the top by leading business mentors.
Rachel Barnes and Sharon Atkinson formed Call Agents UK Limited initially to offer call answering services to clients in the North East and nationally.
Within weeks of launching in September last year, the business had expanded to provide telemarketing and virtual personal assistant services.
Now they are looking to recruit up to 30 people as their client list expands across a range of sectors including engineering, travel and tourism, marketing, energy and training.
Rachel said: “Through our experience and extensive research we knew for a long time that there was an opportunity to offer call answering services as we’d seen how big it is in America and the South of England. We just had no idea how popular it was going to be.
“What started as a basic call answering service, where we act as a company’s front desk to take overflow calls or step in when their office is unmanned, very quickly developed into a lead telemarketing service at the request of our customers.”
Rachel and Sharon, who were both made redundant in the collapse of North East call centre operator Garlands, put a large part of their success down to the help they continue to receive from professional advisors.
Deb McGargle a board member of Women Into the Network, and Victoria Scarisbrick, from TwentyEight Management Limited, worked closely with Rachel and Sharon, providing commercial and legal advice and guidance in market-focussed business planning.
Sharon explained: “Picking professional advisors who can mentor you has proved to be one of the most beneficial lessons we have learned.
“We didn’t deliberately set out to have an all women team but in choosing the right people it was vital that we found advisors who we felt comfortable with, who would stay with us during this early period and who would become a seamless extension to Call Agents UK.
“Of all the people we spoke to Deb and Victoria immediately understood our business. The added benefit is that they are both well connected throughout the region, are ambassadors for women’s enterprise and have had first hand experience of running their own businesses and everything that goes with it.”
Deb, a consultant and a qualified barrister, provides commercial and business law advice to small and medium enterprises and high growth businesses throughout the region.
She said: “I immediately warmed to these ladies; the energy and passion they have in making this business successful is just contagious.
“I have seen first hand the excellent service they provide to customers and with the sound legal and business foundation which I and Victoria have helped them put in place they might be the ones to watch in 2011. I am looking forward with interest to the next 12 months as their business grows.”
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