Call Centers Tap Stay-At-Home People
Friday, 13 January 2006
Forget outsourcing call center and customer service jobs to India or the Philippines. How about outsourcing jobs to the den? Increasingly, reports The Wall Street Journal today, more companies are outsourcing their call center and customer service-oriented work to at-home freelancers.
Work & Family columnist Sue Shellenbarger notes that, for many years, demand for at-home employment far outstripped supply, giving rise to a perennial crop of work-at-home scams, from pyramid schemes to phony job referrals.
However, now, working at home is taking a leap forward – in the customer-service arena. Instead of sending call-center work overseas, Shellenbarger reports that a growing number of consumer-products and -services companies – from Office Depot and J. Crew to Wyndham Hotels and Sears Holdings – are outsourcing work to people in their homes here.
Driven by expanded broadband access to the Web, cheaper computer technology, and improved call-routing systems, the trend has opened the door to an entirely new group of at-home workers.
Home-based call-center agents have tripled since 2000, estimates Art Schoeller, a senior analyst for research concern Yankee Group. A survey last August of 350 US and Canadian call centers by Yankee Group found that 24 percent of agents, or 672,000 workers, are now based in their homes.
IDC, a Framingham, MA research concern, sees the growth continuing, with home agents increasing at a rate of 24 percent each year from 2006 through 2010.
Shellenbarger says the pay for home agents is limited, and most jobs come through outsourcing firms and lack benefits. Also, she points out, the work – such as taking telephone orders for things ranging from airline reservations to workout gear – can be wearying, repetitive, and stressful. “Nevertheless, such jobs are a potential boon for people who care for children or elderly family members at home,” she writes.