More call center work done at home

Companies that supply customer service agents to businesses around the world say they are saving money and attracting better employees by letting them work from their own houses. Using Internet telephone technology, the operators are able to answer questions and hear out complaints as if they were working in a sprawling call center in an office park.

"It gives us access to some high-quality labor that wouldn't work in a call center," said Andrea Ayers, president for customer management for Convergys Corp., an outsourcing company that is ramping up the number of agents who work from home. "This gives us more staffing flexibility, and we can make it work with their lifestyle."

Convergys and rival companies say they're being swamped with applications. The first spike came a few months ago, when gas prices topped $4 a gallon. Now, they're surging again as unemployment soars.

Home agents often start at $8-to-$10 an hour, earning more depending on the skill and knowledge required for specific clients. Besides gas, home-based operators save on car maintenance and the cost of keeping up an office wardrobe.

Sharon Castor had never given much thought to working at a call center, and even less to going back to an early rising, traffic-fighting work life she had for nearly three decades before retiring. But after the ailing parents she helped care for passed away, she was getting antsy after five years off and needed some extra income.

"I said, 'I need to do something, but I really don't want to go back downtown every day again,' " said Castor, who used to spend 90 minutes each morning getting ready for work and then driving from her northern Kentucky home to her job as a Procter & Gamble Co. staffer in downtown Cincinnati.

After researching at-home work opportunities--"there are a lot out there who make all kinds of promises"--she came to Convergys.

Soon, she had converted an extra bedroom in her home into an office, where she helps customers with insurance matters and other questions on behalf of a health-care company. It's among the many companies that don't want their use of outsourced customer service made public; Convergys says it does work for more than half of the Fortune 50 biggest businesses.

The Cincinnati-based outsourcing company has been rapidly expanding its at-home work force. It has some 1,200 home agents and expects to triple that next year.