What Does the Market Look Like for Contact Center Work?

After being sent overseas over the past decade, contact center jobs are now making a comeback in North America. Many organizations experienced a decline in sales during the latter half of the 2000s and have now decided to bring their call centers back. This is thanks to a combination of reasons: increased wages for foreign workers, a high turnover rate, and, most importantly, customer dissatisfaction.

What Does This Mean?

If you’re a call center agent, it means that finding a job has gotten a lot easier. Customer satisfaction is high on the list of priorities for many companies, so call center agents who are able to effectively communicate with customers concerning complicated or sensitive issues are imperative. Businesses may still use overseas centers to take care of low-margin/risk calls, but they are also moving more specialized call center jobs back to Canada and the U.S. If you have highly specialized skills, you may be in higher demand for a call center position.

Look for Companies That Are Expanding

The influx of call center operations also means an increase in business. Companies may be looking for local, qualified staff with highly specialized skills to handle the increased demand.

The Customer Is Always Right

One of the biggest forces behind moving call center jobs back to North America is customer satisfaction. Companies eventually discovered that their customers weren’t too happy with the service or communication they received from overseas call center agents. Now that contact centers are back in North America, customers are more satisfied compared to when service was handled offshore. Moving call center jobs overseas may have saved companies money in the short term, but in the long run, many companies have decided that customer satisfaction takes precedence.

North American Call Center Agents Are More Affordable

Many companies originally moved their call centers overseas due to low worker wages. The problem is that those same wages have steadily gone up over the years. There has also been a high staff turnover rate; some offshore call centers reported turnover rates of 100% per year as opposed to the less than 20% in most North American cities.

For anyone looking for a call center job, this is the right time. Many organizations are looking for ways to operate more efficiently, and this includes enhanced training for their agents.

It seems that “outsourcing” has become a four-letter word in recent years and “inshoring” is slowly but surely becoming the main source of talent for more call centers.

Sources:

Silcoff, S., “Canadian call centres ring up new job growth,” The Globe and Mail web site, March 13, 2012; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/canadian-call-centres-ring-up-new-job-growth/article533634/.

Witsil, F., “Call center jobs increase as more return from overseas,” USA Today web site, August 4, 2014; http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/04/call-center-jobs-overseas/13560107/.