PhDs in India have jobs responding to 1-800-FLOWERS.com's e-mails

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Call Centers In The Rec Room
"Homeshoring" takes off as moms and others provide an alternative to offshoring

Three years ago, when the offshoring debate was in full fury, the director of vendor relations at 1-800-FLOWERS.com ran a pilot project to see if the company should be taking advantage of the new labor arbitrage. Within weeks, the trial in India bombed. For the executive in charge, Lou Orsi, it was a reminder that customer service is as much about psychology as technology. Florists often double as condolence therapists, interior design coaches, and relationship strategists. "The folks were difficult to understand," says Orsi. "We were afraid that we would lose sales, and we couldn't risk that." The company also needed to pour on the labor during spikes like Valentine's Day. (When it came to answering customers' e-mails, though, the dazzling prose of the Indians -- many of them PhDs -- outshone that of the Americans, most of whom had gone only to high school. So Orsi left some of the e-mail jobs overseas).

The phone work stayed in the U.S. But not just in brick-and-mortar call centers. Instead, Orsi looked for another way to cut costs. He soon realized he could capitalize on a different and far less controversial option: sending the jobs to a U.S. outfit that specializes in a new trend called homeshoring.

More and more, companies are moving customer service jobs out of high-overhead call centers and into what is possibly the lowest-overhead place in the U.S.: workers' homes. The savings are about more than just real estate, toilet paper, and coffee supplies. JetBlue Airways (JBLU ) is perhaps the most famous practitioner; all of its 1,400 reservation agents work from home. But they are employees. Most of the new homeshoring jobs are independent contractor positions offered by outsourcing companies. The agents are on the hook for their own health care, computer equipment, training -- even background checks.

Outsourced homeshoring jobs grew 20% last year, to 112,000 jobs, estimates tech-market researcher IDC, and will hit 330,000 by 2010. "Offshoring's underestimated sibling, homeshoring, is about to hit a growth spurt," says IDC analyst Stephen Loynd. Office Depot (ODP ), McKesson (MCK ), and J. Crew all use home agents. Homeshoring is less likely to risk the accent fatigue, cultural disconnection, and customer rage that offshoring can inspire. That's not to mention the mounting security fears (once your private data -- credit-card and Social Security numbers, medical and brokerage records -- go overseas, they're beyond the reach of U.S. law).

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_04/b3968103.htm

[LisaM]

1. I always call local florists directly

when I send flowers. Now I'm especially glad. This is terrible!

[upi402]

2. LOL, this may indicate why * got some votes;

<snip>
(When it came to answering customers' e-mails, though, the dazzling prose of the Indians -- many of them PhDs -- outshone that of the Americans, most of whom had gone only to high school. So Orsi left some of the e-mail jobs overseas).
<snip>
from OP link

[liberalhistorian]

3. I'm glad to hear of this trend, as

I absolutely abhor offshoring and have made it a practice to not patronize any company I know is doing it. It's not the foreign workers themselves that piss me off, it's the company's that are taking American jobs overseas. And just trying to understand them is almost impossible at times, and that's really beyond irritating.

This may actually help workers if more and more companies do this. I know I sure would like to be able to work from home, no question, and most people I know would rather do that. It sounds like a win-win situation, the company greatly reduces overhead yet still had a good workforce, and the worker has a job but still gets to be at home. It's about time companies finally got the message that we're tired of offshoring, both losing jobs to it and having to deal with foreign workers we cannot understand.

[LisaM]

4. But, do they get benefits working at home?

And another thing - when I call a florist, I want a recommendation on what to buy based on what's in their shop that day. I don't want to talk to someone 800 miles or more away, who doesn't know what they have in stock, doesn't know where they get their flowers from, or won't have a hand in what the finished product looks like. No thank you.