Some site selection consultants say that no one can serve an American better than another American. But with more Americans working than ever before, finding enough of them willing to become call center agents, and at wages and benefits you can afford is becoming increasingly difficult.

Consequently, many American companies, especially cost and labor supply-sensitive outsourcers, are opening call centers in other countries to serve and sell to US customers. There are also a growing number of non-US outsourcers that are marketing their call-and-contact-handling capabilities to American firms, promising lower costs and excellent staff.

Many countries' cities have higher unemployment rates and greater availability than their US counterparts, with labor costs that run from 30% to 75% less than in the US. Consequently, turnover tends to be lower, saving staffing and training expenses while delivering better performance as agents build up experience and knowledge.

Many countries also have larger pools of well-educated people willing to work in call centers because they either have better education systems than in the US or there are few other comparable employment opportunities at the wages call centers pay for college-trained workers. That means you can hire someone with a doctorate for the same, if not less, money than someone with a high school diploma.

Tapping this better-educated workforce is especially critical if you are providing help desk services and selling sophisticated products and services across multiple channels using CRM platforms. Call centers that are set up in other countries often attract and keep applicants with college degrees who can read and write at a level that is vital in e-mail and text chat.

Moreover, college-educated agents can communicate knowledgeably with your customers, especially your top ones, building trust and relationships. Many of them may have learned skills in other valuable languages, like French and Spanish.

For example, one of the market points of etelecare (Monrovia, CA), a US-targeted outsourcer with a 300-seat call center in the Quezon City area of Manila, Philippines, is that all of its agents have college degrees. The outsourcer also points out that its turnover rate is less than 10%.

For many companies, the labor availability and quality alone are enough to prompt them to locate call centers in other nations. For example, Stream International (Canton, MA) recently opened its first Canadian call center, in Belleville, ON, with others likely to follow.

"We found that the labor costs in Canada are not necessarily lower than similar areas in the US, especially when you add in Canadian taxes and telecom costs," explains Stream spokesperson Kathleen Nordgren. "But the real driver that led us to open there and to consider other locations is the highly-skilled and available workforce. In Belleville we found a real broad-based labor force with the technical skills we needed. With Canada being on the North American dialing plan, call routing is not much different than that in the US."

And as more people emigrate to the US and retain their culture and language, Americans are slowly becoming used to hearing and talking to others with different accents. Coupled to rapid improvements in voice/data technology you cannot tell if you are speaking to a Jamaican in Kingston, Jamaica; Kingston, ON; Kingston, NY; or Jamaica, Queens, NY.

But such strategies come with their own pricetags that may require the assistance of business, legal, site selection, teleservices and training consultants to cope with. The logistics and time required locating outside of the US is greater than within US borders, and there are complicated and unfamiliar laws, practices, regulations, agencies, and cultural and language differences to cope with. Some countries' bureaucracies are notoriously ensnarled in red tape. Many have strong unions. Travel to these locales can be time consuming and hassle ridden. There may also be high voice/data costs.

Culture often possesses a gap to non-US call centers. Many people in other countries speak English far faster and with accents too heavy for many Americans to understand. Some countries' residents are not as aggressive and productive sellers as are Americans. And the more localized the product or service that you are marketing and servicing, the less likely agents working in another country will relate or empathize with US customers.

Then again, there are strong accents and cultural differences in the US. A call center agent who has spent his or her life in Florida is not as likely to feel the pain of a Minnesota resident who has problems starting a snowblower as would an agent living in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Alternative Locations: Canada

Canada remains one of the most viable alternative locations for US-serving call centers, with a combination of lower costs, higher-educated and more loyal workforces, pleasant accents and customer service demeanor, and relatively easy accessibility for US companies. Cities like Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver are quick flights across the border from major US cities. The Vancouver area is about a three-hour drive from Seattle.

If you have domestic and international customers that speak other languages, like French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese and Punjabi, you will literally find that Canada's top metro areas are "the world next door" to quote a tourism ad. Canada, which has two official and distinct languages and cultures, English and French, has also attracted many other immigrants, many of whom have settled in the large cities. The country's multicultural policies have encouraged Canada to retain its distinctive languages and cultures.

Yet if you need to serve mainly the US or English- and French-speaking Canadian customers, you may find more available, lower cost but equally qualified labor in many smaller Canadian cities. Canada has many communities that have excellent loyal workers and good schools, but few local jobs. Many high-paying manufacturing, resource and transportation firms, and government functions such as hospitals and military bases, have closed or cut back in recent years, laying off many people.

At the same time these cities are too far from the big cities for workers to commute or easily relocate to. Many rural and small-city Canadians are very attached to their home cities and regions, especially if they offer much lower housing costs and a better quality of life than in the big metro areas. And according to local officials, these cities will and have attracted returning residents if there are new jobs, such as in call centers.

Such labor force advantages have led many US service bureaus to locate in smaller Canadian cities. Recently, EDS (Plano, TX) opened up a call center in Sydney, Novia Scotia, that will hire up to 900 agents. RMH Teleservices (Bryn Mawr, PA) is opening its sixth Canadian call center, in Thunder Bay, in northwestern Ontario that will employ up to 750 agents. Its seventh center, in Nanaimo, British Columbia, across the Georgia Strait from Vancouver, will have up to 800 agents. TeleTech (Denver, CO) is expanding in northeastern Ontario with a new 500-seat center in North Bay and a new 400-seat center in Timmins. SITEL (Omaha, NE) is opening its fourth Canadian call center, in St. Catherines, Ontario, and plans to hire up to 700 agents.