SunRocket occupies former MCI center

SunRocket has occupied the former MCI call center at 1720 E. Primrose and has plans to employ as many as 500 workers by the end of the year, according to company officials. MCI closed the call center June 30, terminating 400 positions.

SunRocket has offered positions to all 400 former MCI workers, and about 80 percent of them have accepted so far, said Michael Barker, vice president of operations for California-based Bell Industries, which has an agreement with SunRocket to manage the call center.

SunRocket, a privately owned provider of Internet-based phone service, is scheduled to begin training its first 200 employees July 10, Barker added. Applications for 300 more positions are being accepted.

Training sessions at the center continue through July, and representatives will begin taking calls in August, according to SunRocket spokesman Brian Lustig.

Barker said SunRocket chose Springfield because MCI had groomed a talented pool of call-center workers while in town.

“This is a call center that has a great legacy – it was always a top-performing location for MCI for a number of years,” Lustig added. “So it was a pretty unique opportunity for us to gain the talent and the experience and the passion of the employees and the leadership there at the center.”

Nearly every former MCI worker will receive the exact wages earned while at MCI, Barker said. Those who were on the low end at MCI – $7 an hour – will start at $8 an hour with SunRocket, Barker said.

The facility will be the first domestic center for SunRocket, which has a center in Canada and another in the Philippines. Lustig said the company expects the Springfield center to evolve into the provider’s largest center and serve as its “U.S. base of operations.”

SunRocket currently has about 130,000 customers.

This story originally appeared in SBJ’s July 6 free e-news Daily Update. Click here to register.