The following article should raise concerns by all disabled Americans.
First, good for Maureen Quigley. She is once again employed and at a job tailored to her special needs.
But the implication is not good news for many disabled people fully able to travel to a job and put in long hours. The bad news about the good news that jobs may be coming back to our shores, is that it is because we are all working for less money. Just think of it folks, once America is on a par with all other Third World nations we will all have our jobs back, For one third our former wages, or less.
Well, here's my best advice. We'd better start looking out for ourselves because you can bet your last dollar(now worth 25 cents) that no one else is going to look out for us.
Curious Carl
***************
Outsourced Call Centers Return, To U.S. Homes
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129406588&ft=1&f=1003
by Carolyn Beeler Listen to the Story
Maureen Quigley-Hogan is the next generation of call center worker.
Wearing pink slippers and sitting at her desk in her home office in
Virginia, she takes a call from a woman in New Jersey who has a question
about her credit card bill.
Quigley-Hogan was unemployed for 10 years because she couldn't hold down a
traditional job, she says. She has rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, a
disease that causes severe fatigue.
"It was hard to get to a job," Quigley-Hogan says. "The idea of going
through a regular schedule of getting up and getting ready for work, I
would be exhausted."
She worked in customer service for more than 20 years, so two years ago,
she was thrilled to land this job where she can work from home.
Rethinking Overseas Outsourcing
For years, Americans have had their phone calls about credit card bills and
broken cell phones handled by people in the Philippines or India. But
American firms are starting to bring call centers back to the U.S. - and
this time around, they are hiring more people to work in their own homes.
Ten years ago, it made a lot of sense to outsource these jobs overseas. But
that's changing. Increasingly, companies that want to outsource their
customer service jobs are happy with these domestic arrangements.
High inflation and double-digit annual raises in some sectors are pushing
up the cost of labor in India. At the same time wages in the U.S. are
falling and companies are rethinking the trade-offs associated with
outsourcing.
Weighing Costs And Woes
Richard Crespin, director of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association,
says when companies decide whether to outsource overseas they have to weigh
the costs as well as "the inconvenience of having something distant from
you and not close in proximity - what I would call the pain-in-the-neck
factor."
He says when wages drop in the company's home economy, those companies are
less likely to outsource these jobs to other countries.
Experts say outsourcing is still accelerating for jobs in IT services and
manufacturing. Phil Fersht, an outsourcing analyst, says even before the
recession started, companies were starting to realize that offshoring
wasn't the best option for other services.
In some cases, workers in India are making only about 15 percent less than
workers in Nebraska, he says. That's the threshold where companies start
thinking about whether it's worth it to hire an American worker instead of
a foreign one.
Thousands Of Home Workers
Home workers, such as Quigley-Hogan, represent one of the cheapest models
for customer service. There are an estimated 60,000 people doing call
center work from home.
"It provides a lower cost point than other traditional means of onshore
customer service," says Chris Carrington, who runs Alpine Access, the
Denver-based company that Quigley-Hogan works for. Carrington says the low
overhead of having home-based workers allows him to charge 20 percent less
for the same services provided by brick-and-mortar call centers in the U.S.
"We don't have big buildings and we don't have all of that infrastructure
cost, and so we're able to pay our people more and as well as lower our
price for the customers we serve," he says.
Even with these cost-cutting measures, American workers are still the more
expensive option. But industry watchers say so-called home sourcing will
continue to grow as companies look for quality that used to be harder to
afford.
{Sidebar} Lost In Translation: Call Center Blues
American customers say they have more trouble getting inquiries resolved
efficiently when they're routed to call centers outside the U.S.
{Chart}
Notes
The Contact Center Satisfaction Index is based on online surveys of more
than 1,500 adults. Respondents called a contact center within the past
month and spoke with a customer service representative. CFI Group used the
American Customer Satisfaction Index methodology to conduct the research.
Source: CFI Group
Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe/NPR
{Sidebar}
Who's Taking Your Call?
American consumers expressed varying levels of satisfaction with call
centers depending on whether the center is perceived to be overseas or in
the U.S., according to a new report by the CFI Group. Here, a look at some
of the findings:
- Customer satisfaction with calls perceived to be handled in the U.S. was
more than one-fifth higher than with calls perceived to be handled outside
the country.
- Callers said one of the biggest disparities between foreign and American
call centers was the ease of understanding the customer service agent.
- Consumers report that fewer calls are now being handled by agents outside
the U.S. Nine percent of consumers say that their calls were handled by an
agent outside the U.S. in 2010, down from 11 percent in 2009.
- Joshua Brockman
Source: CFI Group's 2010 Contact Center Satisfaction Index
...
Comment
...
Copyright 2010 NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129406588&ft=1&f=1003
by Carolyn Beeler Listen to the Story
Maureen Quigley-Hogan is the next generation of call center worker.
Wearing pink slippers and sitting at her desk in her home office in
Virginia, she takes a call from a woman in New Jersey who has a question
about her credit card bill.
Quigley-Hogan was unemployed for 10 years because she couldn't hold down a
traditional job, she says. She has rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, a
disease that causes severe fatigue.
"It was hard to get to a job," Quigley-Hogan says. "The idea of going
through a regular schedule of getting up and getting ready for work, I
would be exhausted."
She worked in customer service for more than 20 years, so two years ago,
she was thrilled to land this job where she can work from home.
Rethinking Overseas Outsourcing
For years, Americans have had their phone calls about credit card bills and
broken cell phones handled by people in the Philippines or India. But
American firms are starting to bring call centers back to the U.S. - and
this time around, they are hiring more people to work in their own homes.
Ten years ago, it made a lot of sense to outsource these jobs overseas. But
that's changing. Increasingly, companies that want to outsource their
customer service jobs are happy with these domestic arrangements.
High inflation and double-digit annual raises in some sectors are pushing
up the cost of labor in India. At the same time wages in the U.S. are
falling and companies are rethinking the trade-offs associated with
outsourcing.
Weighing Costs And Woes
Richard Crespin, director of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association,
says when companies decide whether to outsource overseas they have to weigh
the costs as well as "the inconvenience of having something distant from
you and not close in proximity - what I would call the pain-in-the-neck
factor."
He says when wages drop in the company's home economy, those companies are
less likely to outsource these jobs to other countries.
Experts say outsourcing is still accelerating for jobs in IT services and
manufacturing. Phil Fersht, an outsourcing analyst, says even before the
recession started, companies were starting to realize that offshoring
wasn't the best option for other services.
In some cases, workers in India are making only about 15 percent less than
workers in Nebraska, he says. That's the threshold where companies start
thinking about whether it's worth it to hire an American worker instead of
a foreign one.
Thousands Of Home Workers
Home workers, such as Quigley-Hogan, represent one of the cheapest models
for customer service. There are an estimated 60,000 people doing call
center work from home.
"It provides a lower cost point than other traditional means of onshore
customer service," says Chris Carrington, who runs Alpine Access, the
Denver-based company that Quigley-Hogan works for. Carrington says the low
overhead of having home-based workers allows him to charge 20 percent less
for the same services provided by brick-and-mortar call centers in the U.S.
"We don't have big buildings and we don't have all of that infrastructure
cost, and so we're able to pay our people more and as well as lower our
price for the customers we serve," he says.
Even with these cost-cutting measures, American workers are still the more
expensive option. But industry watchers say so-called home sourcing will
continue to grow as companies look for quality that used to be harder to
afford.
{Sidebar} Lost In Translation: Call Center Blues
American customers say they have more trouble getting inquiries resolved
efficiently when they're routed to call centers outside the U.S.
{Chart}
Notes
The Contact Center Satisfaction Index is based on online surveys of more
than 1,500 adults. Respondents called a contact center within the past
month and spoke with a customer service representative. CFI Group used the
American Customer Satisfaction Index methodology to conduct the research.
Source: CFI Group
Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe/NPR
{Sidebar}
Who's Taking Your Call?
American consumers expressed varying levels of satisfaction with call
centers depending on whether the center is perceived to be overseas or in
the U.S., according to a new report by the CFI Group. Here, a look at some
of the findings:
- Customer satisfaction with calls perceived to be handled in the U.S. was
more than one-fifth higher than with calls perceived to be handled outside
the country.
- Callers said one of the biggest disparities between foreign and American
call centers was the ease of understanding the customer service agent.
- Consumers report that fewer calls are now being handled by agents outside
the U.S. Nine percent of consumers say that their calls were handled by an
agent outside the U.S. in 2010, down from 11 percent in 2009.
- Joshua Brockman
Source: CFI Group's 2010 Contact Center Satisfaction Index
...
Comment
...
Copyright 2010 NPR
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