Just saw this article on CBC.ca
As a call center consultant at a call center consulting firm, I am frequently asked to comment on the health of the call and contact centre industry in Canada. The environment today does have some glimmers of hope; such as the Convergys announcement of 120 new jobs, Telelink announcing 40 more jobs in St John’s and Swinton announcing 65 in Nova Scotia, but the industry is still recovering from significant contraction that occurred due to the double whammy of the recession and increased strength of the Canadian dollar.
Many call centres in Canada serve the United States market and these centres saw job cuts as a result of the recession in the US and significantly increased operational expenses as a result of the strengthening of the Canadian dollar. The political backlash in the US of outsourcing and specifically off-shoring has lead to protectionist activities and the establishment of outsource agencies in the US that state their mission as ‘bringing jobs back to the US”. This political pressure has caused US firms to reassess their Canadian call centres. Some of the victims of these factors have been Convergys which whose call centre in Winnipeg closed impacting 500 people earlier this year, Minacs closure in Nova Scotia impacting 200 people. Both of these firms are outsource or BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) firms and serve customers internationally. It is not outsources who are facing challenges; Canwest outsourced 300 jobs from Winnipeg to the Dominican Republic and Bell Aliant closed a number of call centres in Atlantic Canada.
As the recovery sputters along we will hopefully continue to see glimmers of hope in terms of new hiring in the call centre industry, but I expect most of these to be to serve domestic customers; the US is still far from a real recovery and faced with a weak economy, increased costs of operating in Canada and political pressure to repatriate jobs to the US and this will lead to additional closures and layoffs in the call centre industry.

Dell to charge for US based support calls

So Dell believes they have found a solution to the level of dissatisfaction that customers feel when dealing with their offshore contact centers. For just $13/month or $99 a year you can speak with US based support agents with a wait time of two minutes or less. Those customers who do not enrol in the 'Your Tech Team' service will continue to handled by offshore centers. See original article here .

So is this really a solution? Will customers enroll in this new service?

Well it may represent a solution for Dell as they struggle to balance the cost savings associated with offshore centers (estimated at 20-30%) with the ire these very centers raise with their customers.

To answer the second question, yes, I believe that customers will take advantage of the service, in part to gain what they perceive to be better service, but also for patriotic reasons. Patriotism as a rationale may surprise some of you, but certainly we have heard the rhetoric about bringing back American jobs and the evils of outsourcing from politicians and in the business and mainstream media. But this sentiment resonates well with many Americans and this has been recognised by some service companies. Jitterbug a company that provides cellular phone service to older Americans states in the television ads that they have "US based customer service". and shows a headset draped in a US flag. Jitterbug has included or 'buried' the increased cost of domestic contact center services in their pricing.

Contact Centers of America (CCA) is an outsource service provider with a mission to to 'bring back Customer Service jobs to America'. Their advertising and marketing material is clearly designed to invoke a patriotic response. Now CCA does have a strategy to offset in part the higher cost by co located their centers on/near Universities and Colleges and partnering with these learning institutions to provide job training, Co-Op and student employment at lower and/or subsidized rates.

So CCA reduces the base cost of US based service through partnerships, Jitterbug includes it in the price and Dell offers pay for service.

None of this is really new, the same thing has occurred in the UK starting five years ago. With a backdrop of weekly and almost daily horror stories in dealing with offshore centers. Banks and insurance companies specifically began touting UK based call centers in their ads on television and in print. In fact a UK based call center was positioned a reason enough to move your bank account, since the actual products all banks sell is virtually the same.

Dells shift may just be the thin edge of the wedge as companies look for ways to improve customer loyalty and retention. Clearly forcing customer to deal with a contact center where the customer has difficulty understanding the agent can be frustrating. Frustrated customer do not align well with improved loyalty or repurchase