Lisa Hancock wrote:
> As to the costs of running an office, the rent in a small town main
> street will be much less than in a downtown city. The incremental
> cost of providing customer space would be modest.
> Further, the office might double has an office for engineers and
> contractors who have business with the phone company, so adding a few
> POTS customers here and there is no big deal -- in other words, a
> receptionist and waiting room are already there. In contrast, a big
> phone company in a city could get flooded with customers and would
> need much more expensive space.
Further to my comments about Verizon still owning and operating retail
stores:
Verizon has a large operation here in the Victor Valley. Aside from
the five or six COs they have within fifteen mintues of each other,
they have a Verizon Plus retail store and a call center operation. The
Verizon call center in Victorville handles 411 directory assistance
for Verizon landline and Verizon Wireless customers, and presumably
also customers of other LECs and wireless providers. In addition, the
Victorville CO on Mojave Drive is much larger than you'd normally
expect a CO to be, and since there are a large number of company
trucks, etc., in its parking lot, I assume it's some sort of regional
service center.
So it makes sense to have a human presence here, and they have had one
at least since GTE and probably since back in the ConTel days (the
call center still has an old sign out front that reads "GTE Employee
Parking").
SBC is a different animal. Ameritech Ohio used to be headquartered in
downtown Cleveland, at Erieview Plaza, and the Ameritech building did
have walk-up windows for customers. SBC, while still maintaining
corporate offices at Erieview, no longer has the space for customers,
although they might have a Cingular Wireless store there (but for some
reason I recall the closest Cingular corporate store being a few
mintues away). I believe this is SOP for SBC ...
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