After reading the New York Times' August 16th article titled "At Netflix, Victory for Voices Over Keystrokes," I have to express my appreciation to Netflix for its sensible approach to service.

Too often, those of us who work in call centers, and those of us who observe them, hear predictions that on-line communication will replace conversations between customers and the companies they do business with.

A far more nuanced analysis, which you can hear during our August 16th Webcast, reveals that it's much more helpful to think of on-line communication as an option in addition to, rather than as a substitute for, conversations.

Sometimes, as appears to be the case with customers of Netflix, consumers prefer live conversations to e-mail correspondence to such an extent that companies – like Netflix – make the decision to assist customers entirely by phone.

What combination of phone and on-line communication works best in your call center? I invite you to drop me a line to offer your thoughts and observations.

I know it's early, but in the spirit of preparing for the fall, I'd like to share my perspective about what I will focus on in an upcoming piece about call center offshoring; the piece will appear in the October issue of Customer Management Insight.

Here are some of the questions to which I will seek answers that reflect various points of view:

1. How accurate are wages as indicators of labor costs for prospective offshore call center locations? To phrase this question in another way, what other factors, in addition to wages, should companies consider as they evaluate potential costs and benefits of offshoring?

2. What factors are most likely to influence the quality of customer service that is typically available from leading offshore call center locations? To what extent, if any, could the quality of service that is typically available from a given region justify labor costs associated with that region?

3. What role do attrition and labor scalability in a given region play in encouraging businesses to look into locations they might have otherwise not thought to consider? What are recent examples of lesser-known offshore call enter locations that are benefiting from labor saturation in better-known regions?

4. Given that an increasing percentage of American consumers speak Spanish, to what extent do you expect call center operations that are based offshore will tap Spanish-speaking labor forces to serve American customers who speak Spanish?

5. What other trends in call center offshoring should companies be aware of?

Stay tuned for further thoughts about call center offshoring.