Kwik Fit Insurance Services plans to recruit 180 people by the end of the year as the company seeks to boost sales across its portfolio.

Marie Stewart, the company’s recruitment and induction training manager, said that the new recruits will fill a variety of roles at its Uddingston, Lanarkshire contact centre including outbound sales, internet sales and renewals. “There’s a lot of opportunity to grow,” Stewart told Recruiter.

Car and home insurance are Kwik Fit’s core products, and Stewart said that the company is experiencing one of its “strongest years on record” for sales of new policies.

“We are not a super brand in our market; we’re not a Norwich Union [Aviva] or a Direct Line, and we don’t spend lots of money on TV advertising,” Stewart said. “However, we benefit from our association with Kwik Fit garages.”

Stewart said that the company works closely with the four recruitment agencies on its preferred supplier list. Other recruitment tools used by Kwik Fit are a successful employee referral programme, and work with a local Jobcentre and two job boards. However, a major challenge for contact centre recruitment is “people want to work here, but they don’t understand how challenging the work here is”, Stewart said.

Nearly 1,000 people work at the Uddingston site. Another 150 people work at the Birmingham contact centre of Express Insurance Services, which was acquired by Kwik Fit in 2007.