越来越多的公司也在使用“超级代理”，他们可以同时处理客户的所有问题，而不是为每个单独的问题在全世界范围内进行转换。还有一些代理可以一次接听多家企业的电话，使用专门的调度系统，在查询进入时为不同的客户提供脚本。
Pulling that off, however, requires companies to spend money on what has traditionally been thought of as a "low-skilled" workforce. In today's tight labor market, it also helps if they provide workers with an incentive to stick around, such as a chance to advance at the company or earn more — perks typically offered to in-house workers, rather than outsourced ones.
然而，要想做到这一点，公司就需要在传统上被认为是“低技能”的劳动力上花钱。在当今劳动力市场供不应求的情况下，如果他们能给员工提供一种激励，让他们留下来，比如在公司里升职或挣更多的钱——这通常是提供给内部员工而不是外包员工的福利，这也是有帮助的。
"If you're going to have a traditional churn-and-burn type call center, you're going to really struggle to attract candidates," said David Hadobas, president of CCNG, Inc., a Fort Worth, Texas-based networking organization for call center professionals. "If it's a stepping stone, you're going to learn the business from the customer side and we'll push you throughout the organization — that's a whole different proposition then 'put on a headset and shut up.'"
总部位于得克萨斯州沃思堡的呼叫中心专业人员网络组织CCNG公司的总裁大卫•科勒巴斯说：“如果你拥有一个传统的消极和流失型的呼叫中心，你将很难吸引候选人。” “如果这是一块垫脚石，你就会从客户那里学到业务，我们会把你推向整个公司——这是一个完全不同的感觉，你可以戴上耳机闭口不言。
Following its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in 2016, for example, cable provider Charter Communications announced it would be adding thousands of call center jobs in places like McAllen, Texas, that it had previously contracted out. While the company declined to disclose exactly how many people it had hired, Charter said that call handling times have gone down since bringing the work in-house.
例如，在2016年收购时代华纳有线电视（Time Warner Cable）之后，有线电视提供商Charter Communications（美国特许通讯公司）宣布，将在德克萨斯州的麦卡伦等地增加数千个呼叫中心工作岗位，此前该公司已将这些岗位外包出去。虽然该公司拒绝透露其雇佣了多少人，但其表示，电话处理时间自内部工作以来一直在减少。
"Investing in its own locally based workforce with more training and better wages and craftsmanship results in higher-quality service and drives value into our business," said spokesman Francois Claude.
该公司发言人弗朗索瓦•克劳德说: “投资于自己的本地员工，提供更多的培训、更好的工资和技术，会带来更高质量的服务，并为我们的业务带来价值。”
Whether US companies employ more American or foreign customer service agents doesn't only depend on economic forces, though. Politics and policy matter, too.
不过，美国企业是否雇佣更多的美国或外国客户服务代理，并不仅仅取决于经济力量。政治和政策也很重要。
During the Great Recession, the Federal Communications Commission convened a coalition of US call center firms called Jobs4America that pushed clients to keep their operations in the United States by emphasizing the risks and complications of going overseas, such as fraud, travel time for executives and lower customer satisfaction.
在大萧条期间，美国联邦通信委员会召集了一个名为Jobs4America的美国呼叫中心公司联盟，通过强调海外业务的风险和复杂性，比如欺诈、高管出差时间和客户满意度降低等因素，促使他们的客户继续将业务留在美国。
Matt Zemon, the former chair of Jobs4America and CEO of an outsourcing firm called Bernard, said they convinced plenty of companies that offshoring wasn't as profitable as they initially thought. "What was the true cost per sale?" Zemon asked. "Sometimes it's just bringing different metrics to someone's attention."
马特·泽蒙是Jobs4America的前任主席，也是一家名为Bernard（伯纳德）的外包公司的首席执行官。他说，他们说服了很多公司，说离岸外包并不像他们最初认为的那样有利可图。泽蒙问，“每次出售的真正成本是多少？” “有时候，它只对于一些不同的关注点带来不同的衡量标准。”
The group ceased operations, however, when President Obama left office and leadership changed at the FCC.
然而，当奥巴马总统在联邦通信委员会(FCC)离任时，该组织停止了行动。
Still, many companies continue to offshore call center jobs in order to cut costs. Take AT&T, one of the largest employers of customer service agents in the country. According to the Communications Workers of America, a union that represents about 100,000 AT&T workers, the company has closed 44 call centers in the United States over the past seven years, cutting 16,000 jobs.
尽管如此，为了削减成本，许多公司在海外建立了呼叫中心。以AT&T（美国电话电报公司）为例，它是美国最大的客户服务代理公司之一。根据美国通信工人协会的数据（美国工人协会代表了大约10万的AT&T员工），在过去的7年中，该公司在美国已经关闭了44个呼叫中心，减少了16000个工作岗位。
A company spokesman declined to confirm how many call center workers AT&T has hired or cut over time. However, Convergys, one of AT&T's major outsourcers, said during a recent earnings call that much of its work for the telecom giant has been moved to cheaper foreign call centers.
一名公司发言人拒绝透露AT&T已经雇佣或削减的呼叫中心员工人数。不过，AT&T的主要外包商之一Convergys在最近的一次财报电话会议上表示，该公司的大部分工作都转移到了成本更低的外国呼叫中心。
(AT&T's planned acquisition of Time Warner, CNN's parent company, has been challenged by the federal government. A judge is set to rule on the deal by next month.)
(AT&T收购美国有线电视新闻网母公司时代华纳的计划受到了联邦政府的阻拦。法官将在下个月对这笔交易作出裁决。)
Rather than outsourcing, some companies are starting their own overseas call centers. Amazon(AMZN) has thousands of customer service workers in Costa Rica, according to Site Selection. Uber last year added 500 people to its call center in Hyderabad, India, and Wells Fargo (WFC)laid off call center workers in Pennsylvania last year while adding more jobs in the Philippines. For these reasons, analyst firm Ibisworld projects call center employment in the United States will only grow at 1.3% per year through 2022, slower than the national average.
一些公司开始建立自己的海外呼叫中心，而不是外包。根据网站的选择，亚马逊(Amazon)在哥斯达黎加有数千名客服人员。去年，Uber在印度海得拉巴的呼叫中心增加了500人，而富国银行(Wells Fargo, WFC)去年在宾夕法尼亚州解雇了呼叫中心的员工，同时在菲律宾增加了更多的工作岗位。基于这些原因，分析公司Ibisworld projects称，到2022年，美国的中心就业岗位只会以每年1.3%的速度增长，低于全国平均水平。
To try to stem the flow of jobs to other countries, House and Senate Democrats have supported a bill that would require the disclosure of all call centers that big companies send offshore, and for customers to be notified where the worker answering their calls are located. They also wrote a letter this month asking President Trump to issue an executive order that would deny federal contracts to companies with call centers overseas.
为了阻止工作流向其他国家，众议院和参议院的民主党人提出了一项提案，要求披露大公司在海外建立的所有呼叫中心，为了让客户清楚呼叫中心的员工是在哪里接听他们的电话的。
That letter has yet to be answered.
目前提案还没有得到任何回复。
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