An uncertain economy has created site selection challenges and opportunities. Here's a guide to reaching the right locations. When locating a call center to serve and sell to American customers, you may feel that you don't know which destination to travel to or whether to travel at all. Signs that the economy is softening, from slight to moderate depending on the economic forecasters, are beginning to ease the overall labor supply crunch in some markets but not in many others.
Some call centers are likely to rush into areas where plentiful available labor still exists.
There were 84,800 job announcements in 2000 compared with 75,400 in 1999 and 60,500 in 1997. We do see companies becoming more concerned that communities have enough labor with excellent reading and writing skills to handle e-mail and chat. In this booming but uncertain economy you must be extra careful when researching and locating your call center. There is also a misguided tendency to automatically seek out communities with extremely high unemployment. Both of these strategies can trip up your new call center.