Unlike Indian outsourcing companies, domestic outsourcing firms, which use customer service agents who work from home, have found their business has picked up in recent months. “We’re finding the economy to be good to us,” says Rob Duncan, COO of Denver-based Alpine Access.
Angie Seiden, chief executive of Miramar, Florida-based Arise, whose home-based agents work as independent contractors, says half of new potential clients are re-evaluating their commitment to India. Of 47 current clients, six have pulled back from outsourcing their call center work to India, most in the past year, Selden says.
Selden says rising unemployment in the U.S. has been a boon to her workforce. In 2007, 62,000 people made inquiries into working at home as call agents; in 2008, that number was 110,000.
“We’ve seen an unbelievable increase in the quality of talent — a significant uptick in sales acumen, professionalism and business knowledge,” Seiden says.
One reason these companies are increasingly competitive, executives say, is that they have a workforce they can draw upon from anywhere in the country. The workers are motivated, well-educated and mostly female.
Duncan says the economic downturn has meant an abundance of well-qualified workers — 85 percent of whom have some college experience — to meet the needs of businesses more concerned than ever with customer satisfaction and increasingly sensitive to keeping jobs in the U.S.
“No executive wants to be seen as adding fuel to the fire of unemployment,” says Peter Allen, a partner with global sourcing consultants TPI. “If there is a domestic option, executives will take it.”
Maria Felton, a 42-year-old mother of three, works as a customer service agent from her home in Centerville, Maryland. To become an agent for Arise, she had to form her own business, pay a few hundred dollars for a background check and training, and spring for home-office supplies…