MicroAge offers a voice of help on the other end of the phone line

Tuesday, June 3, 1997 | 11:32 a.m.

You've just unpacked your expensive jillion-byte computer, you realize there's an extra part in the box and you have no idea where it goes.

Luckily, you have a toll-free number to call the computer company for technical support.

But the toll-free number you call may not be a hot line to the company. In fact, the voice on the other end of the line may be that of a Las Vegan, a new employee of MicroAge Service Solutions Group.

Some companies that offer customer support are relying more on subcontractors to talk to people with questions. Because company executives want to maintain a good rapport with their customers, they expect a seamless handoff when someone looking for answers calls. In fact, they don't even want customers to know they aren't talking directly to the company.

That's why you may never know if the technical support you get is coming from the company or from a subcontractor that specializes in personal contact over the phone.

That's what happens at the new MicroAge call center in Las Vegas. Dan Ater, group vice president of MicroAge Service Solutions, a division of Tempe, Ariz.-based MicroAge Inc., said the Las Vegas office took its first call at 6 a.m. last Wednesday.

With about 100 people aboard on opening day, the company hopes to expand to 250 by September and operate two eight-hour shifts a day. Ater said the 29,000-square-foot facility at McCarran Center, 7120 Amigo St., is capable of housing 1,200 positions with operations running 24 hours.

The Las Vegas call center is the second for MicroAge. In 16 months, a call center in Tempe has grown from 50 to 400 employees.

"The first week we were here and conducted some job fairs and were very pleased with the applicant pool," said Ater.

After initial testing, Ater said the company immediately hired 50 people who were capable of managing customer relations on the telephone, speaking a high-tech language or dumbing it down for rookies needing help.

The employee pay scale is within a range outlined by employee tests. The higher an employee scores on the skills test, the higher the pay rate. Ater would not disclose the high and low end of the range.

So who calls the Las Vegas office? Ater won't name the companies MicroAge represents, but said they include three major information technology companies, a global transportation operation and a major public utility. The company also does customer surveys, lead-generation calls and telemarketing for eight different companies.

The call center features state-of-the-art technology which allows representatives answering the phones to view on-line information about callers as the question comes in.

The two call centers operated by MicroAge are just one part of the parent organization, a Fortune 500 company that is traded publicly on Nasdaq. The MicroAge Infosystems Services group has branches and partners in 29 countries, offering computer resellers more than 20,000 products.

The company offers servers, desktops, storage, connectivity, imaging, peripherals and software from more than 500 manufacturers, including Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Apple, Digital, Microsoft, Toshiba, Novell and Unisys.

Distribution centers in Tempe, Reno and Cincinnati, Ohio, cover more than 700,000 square feet of manufacturing, warehousing and shipping facilities.

The centers ship more than $15 million worth of computer products daily.