Phonesourcing: Bringing Call Centers Back to the U.S.

[OhioChick]

Monday, Apr. 05, 2010

Once upon a time, phoning it in signaled failure. Now it's a strategic move. As the U.S. economy slowly rebounds, companies are increasingly relying on a decentralized workforce of domestic, home-based call centers. The old mantra: route service calls overseas to cut costs in half. The new idea: bring call centers back home, but not to bulky, brick-and-mortar phone banks. Use hourly workers sitting in home offices, managed on someone else's payroll. Call it phonesourcing.

Phonesourcing basically means contracting with a private firm to hire, train and manage a small army of local or regional call handlers. That enables companies to ramp up or tamp down their services flexibly, without the political controversies that are associated with outsourced, overseas call centers. Handing off call handling isn't new — people have been grinding their teeth on hold for outsourced help since the dawn of voice mail more than a decade ago. What's new is the growing scope and scale of the U.S. home-based call sector. Datamonitor projections show the number of U.S. home-based call agents growing at an annual clip of 20% between 2009 and 2012, from about 50,000 to more than 80,000. That's much faster than the growth rate for calling centers in India (4%) and the Philippines (9%), though foreign outsourcing remains a more popular and cheaper corporate option.

Home-based call centers in the U.S. handle both routine calls — questions about product prices, bank balances or resetting a password — and more complex ones, for technical questions, debt collection and business sales. They also provide answers by instant message or e-mail. Because call handlers are instructed not to mention that they are working for a third party, most customers of the particular bank, wireless firm or retailer have no idea they are not speaking with a company employee.

The hiring firm drafts the script and dictates what greeting and style the call handlers adopt. Agents are most eagerly sought after in the wireless industry, in which increasingly complex smart phones result in bewildered calls about new features or spotty service.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1977027,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

[JPerz]

1. Good and Bad

That's great for creating employment here in the U.S. but I'm a little worried what kind of criminal element may take advantage of personal information.
" questions about product prices, bank balances or resetting a password "

[OhioChick]

3. "I'm a little worried what kind of criminal element may take advantage of personal information."

Most financial institutions offshore their IT departments to India. (All of your personal/financial info)

Not concerned about that?

[JPerz]

8. Always worried

I bank with a local credit union.

[marmar]

7. Why would that risk be any greater than at an offshored call center?

[demosincebirth]

2. I have ATT phone and DSL and I refuse to call tech support unless..

my sytem shuts down completely. I have a hard time understanding them, especially when talking about technical stuff.

[Skittles]

6. imagine talking to them for 10 hours on a conference line

that would be me

[demosincebirth]

10. Must be frustrating! Huh, huh, could you repeat that. I can imagine.

[Skittles]

11. I'll give you an example

they'll give me a computer batch job name, which involves eight numbers and letters. Even though I NEVER understand them, and have to get them to repeat it letter by letter (B AS IN BOY, C AS IN CHARLIE) - they NEVER think to just say the job name and then start with the separate letters - I HAVE TO ASK THEM TO DO IT EVERY DAMN TIME. Gawd.

[teknomanzer]

12. I can understand...

I did not work for AT&T DSL, but I did work for AT&T Uverse as a Level 2 technical support agent. Level one for most of AT&T's services has been outsourced to the Philippines. By the time I got a customer they were usually in a rage over the communication barrier or the fact that these level one techs in the Philippines were not real technicians (like myself) they were script monkeys. Between getting yelled at by the customers and the incompetence of AT&T's on site service section and dispatchers (which led to even more dissatisfaction on the part of the customer) I just could not take anymore. I'm a nice guy -- I honestly want to help people -- but I could only do so much and take so much. I just got damn tired of it all and in spite of the bad economy I just decided I was not going back into work.

I'm considering going back into tech support as a home based job (anyone know of a good company to apply to?) Maybe having the comforts of home around me and the lack of cubicle nazis will make up for the bullshit I have to put up with on the phone.

[Dr.Phool]

14. You don't want to get on the phone with Dish Network.

When you do finally get to the next level of customer service, you get somebody who is so arrogant and nasty, that you want to reach through the phone and strangle them.

If I ever go back to a dish based system, I'll give Satan (Murdoch) the money before I ever deal with those people again.

[napi21]

4. I checked into this once a few years ago. The jobs involved

talong orders for co's like Flowers.comm many mail order catalog co's. Everything I found involved taking orders. I sure don't see any problem with personal info in doing that. I almost had the job until I told them I had a dog. I think they were afraid the dog would bark during a call and tip off the customer that they were giving their order to someone who wasn't in the office of the co. they had called. I could tell that was the deal breaker.
The pay was a bit wierd. You were paid $15.00/hr for the time you spent on the phone with customers, but you had to be available for a specific time schedule. I didn't get into how much an average time on the phone would be, so your pay could be really variable.

[SocialistLez]

5. I'm sort of proud of AT&T

They operate a calling center in my state.

Whenever I call about issues with my cell phone, I know I'm not talking to someone in India.


I am considering switching to a phone service w/ Wal-Mart (I know...I know) that's substantially cheaper than AT&T BUT I plan to use some of my savings for progressive causes. I ended up changing my mind about getting the service a few months ago and the customer service was crap. I could tell the people were reading off a script and it was SO obvious they lived in India. I find the Indian accent sexy in SOME instances but when we're dealing with my $$, I need you to understand me and I need to be able to understand you.

[teknomanzer]

13. Don't be too proud...

I worked for AT&T until the end of last year... got fed up. They have a shit tonne of agents overseas -- mostly the Philippines.

[SocialistLez]

16. I don't doubt it

I also said I was "sort" of proud.

I know they aren't perfect but they could be a heck of a lot worse.

[Dr.Phool]

15. If you're talking about Straight Talk, I'm surprised you even got through.

And then the nightmare begins, once you connect. Crap is an understatement.

[SocialistLez]

17. I'm still very hesitant to get it

I will probably end up not getting the service.

My AT&T bill is eating up my budget.
I want to give up text messaging but I see how much I use it...eh.
I may have to just drastically cut down on how much I text or something to that effect.

I dunno....

What do you think about Sprint?

[kas125]

9. I once was in charge of customer service for an electronics

company, the one who made the speakerphone in Ferris Bueler's Day Off, lol. That thing, and all it's components and accessories cost over $3,000 back in 1984. The problem was that it was all made in Taiwan and we'd get entire shiploads of stuff that didn't work or had problems. After a couple years the company went out of business, but stores were still selling the stuff and it didn't work right. The service center, where I was, had to remain open for a year after the last unit was sold by retail because those people had a one year warranty. I was the one people called to compain to and I FIXED their problems, sent them replacements and didn't make it hard to send the stuff back. Half the time I told them to just dispose of it and not bother. Anyway, I know what Customer Service, especially on phone, is supposed to be and for the last ten years, there hasn't been any to be found. It'a about freakin time they corporations figure out how many customers they've lost by sending it overseas.