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At Hanover Direct Pennsylvania Inc.'s call center, new employees aren't allowed anywhere near Gump's customers.
Taking orders for the line of expensive jewelry, whose picky customers tend to make it clear they have lots of money, requires a special touch, especially at Christmas time.
Only the most experienced operators, called "Gumpies," take calls for Gump's line, says Operations Technician Beth Stair, who functions as a sort of telephone-call traffic cop.
Gumpies sit at the top of the order-filling hierarchy at Hanover Direct, a direct-marketing company whose bread and butter--or perhaps fruitcake and eggnog--is holiday season sales.
Founded in 1934, the Hanover, York County-based publicly traded company gamers the bulk of its annual sales between late September and Christmas, according to Joseph C. Zutell, the company's telecommunications and networking director. It has an office in Weehawken, N.J., call centers in Hanover and in Lacrosse, Wis., and a warehouse in Roanoke, Va., which at any given time stocks between $80 million and $100 million in inventory.
According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, last year Hanover Direct had revenues of $558 million, down from $700 million in 1996.
The 300-seat Hanover call center, with around 1,000 employees on all shifts, takes in up to 27,000 calls a day during the pre-Christmas rush, although the daily flow of calls can dip to 13,000. Eighty percent of calls are answered within 20 seconds. Most associates can handle 10 to 15 calls each hour,...