A CONTACT centre business that has become one of Northern Ireland’s largest private sector employers recorded a surge in turnover and profit during the pandemic, new accounts show.
Teleperformance posted a 61.6 per cent rise in its turnover to £460.1m last year, with pre-tax profits up 20 per cent to £18.1m.
It’s part of the French Teleperformance SE group, which describes itself as ‘the largest outsourced omnichannel customer experience management service organisation in the world’.
In a report published on Companies House, the group said the UK end of the business grew to more than 8,300 staff in 2021.
Around 3,000 workers are thought to be based in Northern Ireland where the company has operated major hubs in Bangor and Newry.
The Bangor centre at the Clandeboye Retail Park was originally set up in 2000, with the Newry base at The Quays shopping centre, opened in 2007.
Workforce monitoring conducted by the Equality Commission put the company’s Northern Ireland headcount at 2,641 in 2020.
But the latest company report show employee numbers were up 20 per cent for the 12 months to December 31 2021, with the firm experiencing a significant uptake in its services amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alongside securing a number of new clients, Teleperformance landed a number of UK Government and NHS contracts to operate support services for the public.
The firm’s clients also include the Student Loans Company, the RAF and the Royal Navy. In the private sector, it provides services for companies including Vodafone, eBay, Aviva and Volkswagen.
Teleperformance’s services, which originated in telephone support, now span a variety of channels including voice, SMS, web-chat and social media.
“Whilst the arrival and impacts of the global pandemic in Q1 2020 could not have been foreseen, our restructured operating platform, along with fantastic efforts across the business, ensured we continued to trade strongly throughout the pandemic and in fact grew our business throughout 2020 and 2021.”
