It's part of a service industries revolution that's sweeping workplaces, based on the old notion that time is money. They are rapidly supplanting corporate switchboards and now employ 160,000 Australians.
Many people are still unaware that they dialling up call centres every day.
Behind the change are the people who teach it - gurus who have become an industry in their own right. Meet the life coaches and their clients, the dog walkers, the house minders and the call centre operators. The Business of Change was broadcast on ABC TV, Monday, August 28, 2000.