Verizon closing Springfield customer service center

Nine months after acquiring Alltel - and the Springfield call center the company runs - Verizon Wireless told employees Tuesday that it is closing the local facility in December.

The call center, 3330 E. Montclair St., will close at the end of business Dec. 5, according to Verizon company spokeswoman Brenda Hill.

The center's 134 customer-service employees will be offered relocation assistance to stay with the company at one of its approximately 30 other call centers in the United States, and those who stay with the Springfield facility to the last day will be offered undisclosed severance pay, Hill said. On-site career counseling services also will be available.

Hill said the company determined after acquiring Alltel that the company's customer service calls - which are routed to centers nationwide and don't necessarily go to the closest office - could be handled at other locations.

"We're not taking all the volume from Springfield and moving it to one place," Hill said. "This volume will be redistributed to our other call centers."

The Springfield closure coincides with the closure of a similar facility in Manhattan, Kan.

Verizon is not shutting down all services at its Montclair Street facility, which the company owns. Employees in other departments, including sales and network support, will remain in Springfield.

The call center closing is part of the process of integrating Little Rock, Ark.-based Alltel into the network of New Jersey-based Verizon. After closing on the $29.1 billion Alltel purchase in January, Verizon's customer base grew to more than 290 million people, making it the largest wireless service provider in the United States.

Hill told Springfield Business Journal in late June that the integration process includes network upgrades in southwest Missouri including cell tower improvements and moving to 3G data-handling technology.

[[In-content Ad]]