Using Call Center Outsourcing Service In The U.s. Instead Of Overseas

By Author: supriyo banerjee
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A recent report shows that some overseas call centers are posing a threat to security. The report is focused on persuading companies that using call center outsourcings service in the U.S.A. would reduce security threats and increase employment at a time when numerous people are out searching for jobs.

Numerous Examples

The report was forthright in naming specific security breaches and the companies that were victimized. Some examples included

Over $420,000 was stolen from numerous cardholders of American Citibank. The cardholders were convinced by the overseas operators to give up their passwords on their accounts.

One journalist that was working undercover on a research piece was able to buy the passwords and details of 1,000 customers of the British Bank. The information was bought from a person working in an IT department in Delhi.

A woman from Pakistan that worked as an operator for a medical facility threatened to release sensitive records of patients over the World Wide Web unless she received a raise.

Flaws across ...
... Systems

The report points out those foreign countries operate under their own code of laws. The problem is that many countries have no standard way to identify citizens such as a common driver’s license or a Social Security like the U.S.A. uses. Furthermore, most of the countries do not maintain any type of database of criminals in order to keep tabs on repeat offenders. This leads to a lack of background checks on potential operators and other workers, opening the door for lawless people. A majority of the countries and outsource centers also do not have any standard guidelines to follow when data has been breached and stolen.

New Legislation Hopes to Help

Congress is stepping in to encourage companies to use American based call center outsourcing service in order to reduce the number of jobs headed out of the country. The legislation is twofold: first, certain federal loans and grants would not be eligible to U.S. companies that choose to use foreign call centers and secondly, the locations of foreign call centers would need to be disclosed.

Problem with Wages

For several years thousands of people in countries such as the Philippines and India have seen huge growth in the number of call centers because the people of the country are willing to work so cheap. Since the cost of living in those countries is vastly lower than America it was easy for American companies to hire a large group of outsourced callers at a fraction of the cost it would take to pay comparable American workers.

The new law has the backing of the Communications Workers of America which is a worker’s union that speaks on behalf of over 700,000 employees. The legislation has a provision that when customers do reach an offshore center they will have the option to request to speak to a call center outsourcing service in the U.S.A. The current legislation is a bipartisan effort and both parties are hoping to increase the number of lawmakers that will support the bill.

Jennifer Oliveros works for Ansafone a call center outsourcing service based in the United States. For more information about inbound call center services, please visit Ansafone.com.