SCOTTISH call centre company HeroTSC has revealed it is recruiting 150 more staff in Glasgow to work on a contract for Sky that has been moved by the satellite broadcaster from entrepreneur Sir David Murray's Response business.

This recruitment is in addition to the transfer to HeroTSC's payroll of about 800 staff who worked on the Sky contract at Response. These employees have transferred across under TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings, Protection of Employment) legislation, and continue to be based in Glasgow.

The Herald revealed last month that Response, part of entrepreneur Sir David's debt-laden metals, property and call-centre group Murray International Holdings, had lost the huge Sky contract and that HeroTSC had won the work.

HeroTSC revealed its recruitment of additional staff to service this Sky contract, including new management positions, at the official opening of its new contact centre at Atlantic Quay in Glasgow's International Financial Services District.

Sky customer sales director Steve MacDiarmid, who cut the ribbon at the three-floor site, highlighted Sky's "long and successful history of working in Scotland".

HeroTSC chief executive David Turner told The Herald: "For me, the big story in here is Sky's commitment to Scotland first, and Glasgow in particular.

"Sky has bases up and down the country. We are fortunate enough to work with them in three other sites – one of them in Derby. They have chosen, because they had people in Response, to maintain these roles in Glasgow and to grow them out further.

"To me, that is a great story, where there are still other businesses looking to move [operations] to lower-cost locations."

HeroTSC does work for Sky at Greenock and Larbert, as well as at Derby and now Glasgow.

Mr Turner highlighted the rapid growth enjoyed by Larbert-based HeroTSC in the past two-and-a-half years, a period in which the economic backdrop has been difficult.

He noted that the workforce of HeroTSC, which was created when the Indian-owned Hero conglomerate bought Telecom Service Centres in 2007, had gone from "just short of 2000 people" two-and-a-half years ago to about 5500 staff following the transfer of the people who worked on the Sky contract at Response.

He added: "Within that, 3000 will work in Scotland. As a Scottish business, we are committed to our Scottish sites and to continuing to grow them."

Mr Turner anticipated that HeroTSC would have completed the recruitment of the additional 150 staff within the next two months. He said about 80 new recruits were already in training.

Telecom Service Centres was founded in Rothesay on Bute in the mid-1990s with only seven employees,

Mr Turner underlined HeroTSC's strategy of "changing from a contact centre to a customer experience centre".

He highlighted the Sky "customer living room" arrangement at the Atlantic Quay centre, with HeroTSC staff having access to "iPads, iPhones, XBoxes and 3D TVs" to allow them to view a customer's issue as if they were sitting on their sofas at home and accessing the satellite broadcaster's services.

Mr Turner also emphasised HeroTSC's efforts to "get people to come to work [and] view this not as a job but as a career".

He also highlighted the speed with which HeroTSC had got its new call centre operational.

Mr Turner said: "I am delighted that we have managed to get this site up and running just a month after we announced we were coming here.

"It is a fantastic achievement to have 800 staff working here so quickly."

It emerged on April 3 that Lloyds Banking Group had injected a further £117.7 million of capital into Sir David's MIH empire to help reduce the debt pile. One source estimated this injection had helped reduce MIH's net debt to about £470m.

Sir David said on April 3 that MIH's medium-to-long-term strategy "remains geared towards asset realisation and reduction, particularly in relation to property". He has since revealed he has found a buyer for part of his metals business.