HR and Homeshoring

Citizen Communications is incorporating a work at home initiative as part of its efforts to improve service quality and market competitiveness (read cost control).  This homeshoring effort will be executed in conjunction with a consolidation drive that will greatly reduce the number of call center and combine them into two large call-centers.

It will be interesting to see if other firms which depend on a high quality call-center force will follow this strategy of consolidation and homeshoring.  It makes sense because one traditional argument for having multiple call centers spread out across different time zones was that the company could offer 24/7 service.  However, homeshoring make diversification across time zones a non-issue for call centers.  Instead, it becomes reasonable to consolidate call center operations into a few physical locations to take care of call volume at peak hours.  Other times can be handled by the work at home workforce.