Can "Homesourcing" Compete with "Outsourcing" in the US Economy?

"Outsourcing" is the practice of shipping jobs overseas where overhead costs are lower. In this article the term specifically refers to outsourced call center and customer service representative positions. The companies involved still serve US customers, but the customer service agents are based overseas in nations like India with significantly lower employee costs for operating customer service call centers. "Homesourcing" refers to a counter trend some companies have used to reduce the call center cost while keeping customer service operations in the United States.

Can "homesourcing" compete with "outsourcing" In the US economy? That's a good question. Here are some facts to help you understand the situation and draw your own conclusions.

Here are some basic "call center economics". To operate a US call center where rows of customer service representatives answer technical support or other customer service function calls costs approximately $30 per representative per hour or more. Those costs include the employee's wages, benefits, payroll taxes, and the cost of overhead for operating the call center such as computers, phone lines, and real estate. A call center in India providing the same service may cost as little as $10 per rep per hour. Between these two extremes are customer service reps based in the US who either work at home or in parts of the country with significantly lower overhead. Those "homesourced" or "home shored" jobs may cost about $20 per hour per rep.

There are a number of reasons that profit driven companies would choose to use representatives based in the United States even if the cost is higher than an offshore call center. The may reasons include one or a combination of the following

- end user preference, i.e. the company's customers want to speak to an American who may understand the customers' concerns better.