Deluxe to lay off 225 Springs call center workers

Deluxe Corp. announced Monday it will close its small business call center in Colorado Springs and lay off the 225 employees who work there as it shifts work to its other call centers during a three-month transition period that begins in January.

A separate center in Colorado Springs that employs 300 to handle calls from consumers for Deluxe’s Checks Unlimited mail-order and Internet-based check printing unit is not affected by restructuring, the company said in a press release. That unit laid off about 100 employees earlier this year after consolidating check-printing operations in Salt Lake City and Kansas City, Mo., as a result of consumers switching to electronic payment methods from personal checks.

The small business center took orders for business checks, forms, envelopes, labels, holiday cards and other printed products and had begun to offer items like digital logos and Web site hosting, but those areas weren’t growing fast enough to offset the decline in printed products, said Mark Byers, executive director of inside sales for Deluxe. The center opened in the Springs in 1988 and has shared a Briargate area building with Checks Unlimited since the mid-1990s.

“We have to align our costs and capacity with the call volume we expect. We have more capacity than we need now or in the foreseeable future,” Byers said “This is difficult for us because this was our most creative and energetic site. We will be losing a lot of very talented people.”

The closing is part of a series of “adjustments” in the company’s small-business operations and will reroute calls to centers in California, Massachusetts and Minnesota, Byers said. Laid-off employees can apply for other positions at Deluxe and many will receive severance benefits the company declined to identify and outplacement assistance that will include on-site job fairs conducted by several groups, he said.

Deluxe is cutting staff as two other local call centers are hiring:

• Affiliated Computer Services is hiring up to 100 employees who would begin a three-week training session Dec. 4 to join 600 current employees taking calls for a wireless carrier it has declined to name; the company plans to hire another 100 for a second training session in January.

• PRC LLC is hiring 260 by year’s end to expand its local call center to handle a seasonal uptick in demand and subscribers for a satellite television client it declined to identify, though openings on the company’s Web site identify the client as DirecTV.

Deluxe is trying to sell the 285,640-square-foot building at 8245 N. Union Blvd. that houses both operations. If the company finds a buyer, it could move the remaining employees to another Springs location.

Checks Unlimited started during the mid-1980s as part of Current Inc., a Springs-based direct-mail greeting card and gift company acquired by Deluxe in 1987. Deluxe moved into a building leased and later acquired from Hewlett-Packard Co. in the mid-1990s and later sold off Current. Checks Unlimited employed nearly 1,400 in 2001 before a series of layoffs.

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Contact the writer at 636-0234

Other local call centers hiring

• Affiliated Computer Services is hiring 200. Applicants can get more information at the company’s center, 2424 Garden of the Gods Road, Building D, by calling 457-4526 or by going to www.acs-inc.com and clicking on careers.
• PRC LLC is hiring 260 by year’s end. For more information, call 262-5607 or go to www.prccareers.com.