Contact Centers of America Brings Jobs back to U.S.

By Robin Wilding
Updated: October 03, 2011

When Joe Jacoboni saw a lull in the contact center industry due to outsourcing and customer dissatisfaction trends he created the Contact Centers of America—where he is currently president and CEO. Since opening the association in 2007 Jacoboni has discovered innate issues that are problematic with the current state of American contact centers—and now believes that he has the solution.

Jacoboni believes that utilizing next-generation technologies will bring contact center jobs back to the U.S. while simultaneously cutting costs and increasing customer loyalty. One of Jacoboni's many suggestions for revitalizing the American contact center industry is to focus on work-at-home workforce solutions with home agents and/or remote agents; agents who work out of the office but have a strong work ethic and who work within a virtual family-type environment.

“We believe in the hub and spoke model,” says Jacoboni. “We will typically hire home agents within a 50 mile radius to give them an opportunity to interact with management, training, company events. We believe in creating a family-type environment.”

The use of home-based agents and remote agents provides a great opportunity for all parties involved, a happier worker that leads to a more satisfied customer, all the while keeping the brick-and-mortar costs down for the employer.

Another solution Jacoboni has for grabbing contact center business back from outsourced, overseas competition is to embrace social media by integrating call center and contact center agents with the process. “It’s not only to audit what’s being said on the Web, but being able to analyze that information, whether their customers or potential customers are positive, neutral or negative about different aspects of a product, service or a company’s basic philosophy,” says Jacoboni.