More Foreign Companies Hiring Americans

Are you one of the millions of people who hates it, when call a companies customer service number, and get someone overseas with such a thick accent that you can barely understand them?

Well not all is lost. There is good news. Oversea call centers are opening call centers in the U. S. Much as the foreign car makers have done, so to are the call centers doing.

For example, and Indian call center (Tata) has opened a call center in Reno. No not that Reno, but Reno, Ohio. A small town of 537 people, whose largest employer is this Indian call center, which employs 250 people.

Their client at this particular call center is the online travel site, Expedia.

The phenomenon has a name: "insourcing," the term experts are starting to use when foreign multinationals open offices on U.S. soil and hire Americans, at a higher price, to do the very jobs they once lured overseas. In this case the center in Reno is targeted toward companies willing to pay a premium - its workers there cost up to 40 percent more than their counterparts in India - to give their U.S. customers a more culturally fluent, less frustrating 1-800 experience. (No more hearing someone read from a script ten time zones away.)

According to CNN Money, Tata, which has a history in India of caring about social causes, has encouraged workers in Reno to get more involved in the community. They even had a float in the communities Thanksgiving Day parade last year. More recently, employees gathered at a local playground that had fallen into disrepair to clean it up.

And when an employee was injured in a car accident, Tata donated $500 to the family. Christy Rice, senior team leader, says those efforts demonstrate the biggest difference under the new owners. "It's less about numbers and more about people," she says.

The reason for this effort to hire Americans, on the part of the foreign companies, is that Americans offer distinct advantages. For example in Expedia's case, its call-center workers need a firm grasp on U.S. geography. While other companies believe Americans bring a more entrepreneurial attitude to their work and still others believe callers feel more comfortable hearing fellow Americans.