Americus Times-Recorder, Americus, Georgia

Beth Alston
The Americus Times-Recorder  September 14, 2011

New employer coming to Americus

PetCareRx to expand calling center capacity

A  welcome announcement was made Wednesday afternoon: PetCareRx, located in Lynbrook, N.Y., is expanding its operations to Americus.David Garriga, executive director of the Americus-Sumter County Payroll Development Authority, said the PDA had been working for “months and months” with Tom Scott, COO and CIO of PetCareRx. He said PetCareRx, through a two-day career fair at South Georgia Technical College, had hired 70 employees, and expects to increase the number of employees to 100 by year’s end.“This is a very exciting day,” Garriga said, prior to introducing Scott.Scott said he was delighted to be back in Americus after working for several months with Garriga.“We made the decision to come to Americus four weeks ago ... It was a very fast process ... A lot of our decision had to do with the support we’re gotten here. I’ve never seen better support and better guys to work with as far as call centers are concerned.”Scott said customer service is of utmost importance.“It is very important to us to give the best pet experience they’ve ever had. We have raised the bar significantly. Our call center agents offer a one-on-one, human experience that makes the difference for our customers.”Scott said PetCareRx has identified qualities in the community such as “a very strong work ethic, a great service orientation and culture, and almost everyone is a pet owner.”He also mentioned the “friendliness” and the “high-caliber” people.“We’re very excited to be here. We appreciate everyone who had helped make this process go so fast,” he said.

PetCareRx, a private company, is billed as “America’s most affordable pet pharmacy.” While a majority of its business is via the Internet, customer service is offered through its call centers. The company offers some 15,000 to 20,000 pet supplies on its website and recently expanded into the pet food arena.“There are not many people who do what we do. It requires very high, very rigorous certification and licensing,” Scott said.Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of PetCareRx, issued the following statement, "We are delighted to announce that we are expanding our call center capacity to Americus, Ga. We were very impressed with the turnout (at the career fair at South Georgia Technical College) and the caliber of the applicants. The community has demonstrated a great work ethic, service culture and southern hospitality. We look to them to provide our customers with the best experience available."Several other PetCareRx team members were present for the announcement, including were Syed Nasim, director of project management; Darren Alleyne, call center director; and Maninder Rattu, director of human resources. Scott Anderson, formerly of Apollo, is also involved in the Americus project.