HATTIESBURG - With call centers and back offices springing up across Asia to serve businesses based in the U.S. and U.K., there have been concerns that the next big flight of jobs offshore will be whitecollar workers. One study has predicted 3.3 million jobs representing $136 billion in wages will shift to overseas workers willing to accept far lower salaries than American workers by the year 2015.

But a Southern Miss professor who has been studying the call center industry for more than eight years has a new book out that says the movement of call centers overseas doesn't always result in saving the company money while keeping the high level of customer service desired. In some cases, companies have found the experiment didn't work, and have relocated the call centers back to the U.S.

"Don't be surprised to find that the outsourcing of the call center jobs overseas will run into the same structural issues we have in the U.S., and thus a potential wave of repatriation of call centers could occur," said Dr. David Butler, whose book "BottomLine Call Center Management: Creating a Culture of Accountability and Excellent Customer Service" is out this month from Elseiver-ButterworthHeinemann Business Books. "Moving American and British call centers, back office and shared services jobs out of the country is still an experiment. The critical issue companies are now balancing is can operations in areas of the world like India and the Philippines deliver the same level of customer service at a lower cost. We will probably know the answer to that question in each industry in the next three years."

Call centers are being relocated to places like India, the Philippines and South Africa because there are large numbers of English speaking residents who have a low labor cost. But there are cultural differences that can make it difficult to meet high levels of customer expectations. While there are schools overseas that attempt to teach employees as much as possible about American culture, Butler expects that can come across as hollow for an America consumer who, for example, is encountering barriers trying to get his or her computer fixed.

"The most well-known repatriation of a call center from India was Dell's commercial laptop division," said Butler, who is director of the international development Ph.D. program at Southern Miss. "The stated reason for bringing the call center back to the U.S. was that the level of customer service expected by commercial laptop customers was not being met in India. Therefore, Dell made the corporate decision that long-term it was better to keep the call center in the U.S."

A major "push factor" in call centers jobs going overseas is employee turnover in domestic call centers that can average 30% or more per year. Retraining half the workforce every 18 months is very costly. It was believed that similar operations overseas would have a lower turnover rate. But Butler says there are indications the turnover rate is becoming problematic in India, as well, because younger people in India are working all night in order to serve customers during daylight hours in the U.S.

"It is not quite the lifestyle many of the young Indians have aspired to," Butler said. "For many it is a temporary job that allows them to hone English skills to get a better job elsewhere, mirroring the problem we have in the U.S. with a high turnover rate. The big picture is that call centers, back offices and shared services are just the most recent incarnation of the movement of jobs, not necessarily just offshore. but to different areas of the country to achieve the most cost effective and productive environment possible.

"For some businesses, the best locations for some operations could be in downtown Manhattan. In other instances it might be Bangalor, India, which is one of two technology cities India has set up to attract these kind of services. In other cases, it might be in downtown Hattiesburg. Business people making these decisions with an eye to increasing revenues and return on investment must balance that with maximizing customer service and keeping customers happy and recurring."

William B. Sisson, vice president for economic development at the Mobile (Ala) Area Chamber of Commerce, said Butler's book is particularly valuable because it details the trend for some offshore call centers to relocate back to the U.S.

"Economic development professionals around the world can benefit from this latest research on future trends in an exciting, expanding industry," Sisson said. "This book gives the reader a thorough, 'bottom-line' understanding of what differentiates successful and sustainable call centers."

Currently, moving call centers offshore is happening on a trial basis for most companies. A company might have four such centers, and moves one overseas to see if it reduces labor costs. If labor savings are modest, the company has to balance that against the fact U.S. customers can encounter difficulties getting the help they need from centers outside of the U.S.

"The questions are, 'Does that move save in terms of labor costs?' And, 'Can this distant area reproduce the same results in terms of customer satisfaction as a stateside operation?... Butler said. "There is evidence that overseas back offices in Asia are successful in some niche areas. But they are not successful broadly across the board for all call centers, back offices and shared services. A major weakness emerging is even though Asian workers have a strong customer service focus, the linguistic skills and ability to manage customers over the phone with empathy, help and the ability to manage the call are not as good as in the U.S."

"Particularly when someone calls a technical help desk with a unique and specific problem, there is less likelihood that someone from Asia will be able to understand, diagnose and solve the problem effectively in order to keep the customer happy so the company gets repeat business - one of the value-added potentials of a call center."

Butler said that although companies can search for the lowest labor cost possible, in the end call centers are not cost centers. Instead, they are the face and voice of the company. He suggests the cost associated with a call center should be more wrapped up in marketing than another business unit such as production or customer service.

"It should be considered an investment," Butler said. "Once that philosophy has penetrated the corporate boardroom, a whole new philosophy in call center development will occur. This is actually occurring in different stages at various companies. It is a slow process, but it will eventually penetrate all companies."

Another factor at play is that with millions of American jobs lost in recent years, there is resistance to moving more jobs offshore. The State of New Jersey, for example, reimported a call center from India and subsidized it to make sure that when someone in the state called for assistance, they would be talking to a fellow state resident. Also, the New Mexico legislature is considering a bill that would prohibit any government contracts with offshore industries. Even the democratic presidential nominees are talking about this issue.

"So there is a bit of a backlash that is showing up and appearing in the movement of these jobs," Butler said. "The fact is the call center and back office industry is extremely dynamic. Companies are moving front office work, accounting and customer service to back offices all the time. As companies emerge and grow, the decision to move a call center to another location happens all the time. You also have companies exiting the industry all the time. Because of that, it is not a stagnant industry."

Butler said the data suggests that although the industry has lost more jobs than have been created in the past two years, there were substantial jobs created at the same firm. One sample data set indicated that from July 2002 to August 2003 , the U.S. opened 27 call centers, closed 40, expanded 12 and contracted 9. Jobs gain totaled 8,534 in U.S., while there were 11,938 jobs lost. During that time period, the United Kingdom gained 5,815 jobs and lost 1,403. Despite overall gains in the industry, there has been a bigger backlash in the UK. regarding the loss of jobs to India. Unions have been very vocal in opposing the movement of those types of jobs overseas.

"The U.S. is somewhat behind the curve in being concerned about the issue compared to the UK.," Butler said. "That is probably because we have a larger and more dynamic economy and population."

During the same timeframe, India gained 9,312, but also lost 2,335 jobs. Butler said while India is definitely a main winner in terms of jobs gained, they are also losing jobs, as well.

While Mississippi has landed a few call centers, Butler believes it could do much better. He said the state has several advantages: It is a non-union state with a very viable workforce that is trainable and usually has a solid work ethic.

"We have not chosen to sell Mississippi to this industry sector as competitively as other states because Mississippi has focused on the automobile sector and some others," Butler said. "I believe this is a strong opportunity that should be explored in as much detail as possible. Specific strategies for attracting call centers to the state are explained in the book in some detail. Mississippi has the opportunity to attract a number of these call centers if the resources and time were spent to pursue this avenue or direction. What any company wants is a high level of performance at the lowest possible cost. Mississippi, as a Southern state, has a good ethic for customer service and clearly we have a strong competitive wage rate. We also have enough infrastructure and population with fiber and support from BellSouth to attract more of these centers to the state."

Are Southern accents potential problems for call centers? Butler says no. If it were, then call centers would not be moved to places in Asia and South Africa were accents are even more different from the standard American dialect.

"I would argue the Southern accent is slower and more clear than the northern accent, and is a much more relaxing accent than elsewhere in the country," Butler said.

One of the things Butler's book addresses is the idea that call centers are not simply a cost function that must be reduced. Call centers can be used for "upselling" and "branding," which can help add value to the company. Several chapters in Butler's book are directed towards helping call center managers create a return on investment model that can have an impact on upper-level executives making decisions about where to locate call centers.

A second critical piece the book offers is tools for managers to reduce the turnover rates, which is one of the major factors driving up the cost of the centers and simultaneously encouraging some people to make recommendations for offshoring these centers.

"Many call center managers are worried over losing their jobs to Asia, and for good reason," Butler said. "My book shows these managers how to add value to their center and position their center within the company so that the executives can see this value for themselves, reducing the change of outsourcing or offshoring their center."

For the book's economic developer audience, Butler's intention is to penetrate the veil about how call centers operate, and about how important labor is. He attempts to deemphasize the focus on accents and infrastructure. The goal of the book, and the Gulf South Call Center Conference planned this September in Gulfport, is to bring call center managers and economic developers together in the same room for them to understand the development of call centers across the nation and the world.