An Irish company that operates call centers and provides technical support for a number of high-profile tech firms plans to open a customer service facility in downtown Athens.
Voxpro said it will establish a “Center of Excellence” and create 500 jobs over the next four years as part of a U.S. expansion, according to a news release from Gov. Nathan Deal’s office.
Voxpro will open temporary offices later this month at One Press Place, home of the Athens Banner-Herald newspaper, which in recent years has become a hub for a number of Athens firms. The permanent office is slated to open in October.
Voxpro CEO Dan Kiely, who co-founded the firm 20 years ago, said the Athens operation will be much more than a call center, providing customer care, tech support, sales, social media services and other functions for major tech clients.
The company started from a paging service that employed a half-dozen people and now has about 2,000 employees in the U.S. and Ireland, Kiely said. Voxpro counts Google and Airbnb among its roster of well-known clients.
Kiely said the company, based in Cork, Ireland, scouted Athens and cities in three other states. He said the talent pool in the Athens area and the region’s quality of life helped sell Voxpro on Georgia.
He said his firm plans to recruit from the University of Georgia. The interior of the new offices won’t look like a call center, but will feel more like a startup with a music recording studio in the office.
“What we want to do is we want to turn this into the coolest place in Athens to work by a mile,” he said. “The design will reflect that.”
The full value of any incentive package also was not immediately known, but the company is eligible for tax credits for new jobs created.
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