Customer satisfaction: Outsourcing in the age of globalization

Globalization has taken many forms since its earliest inception, and the organizational communication concept of globalization has since catapulted to one of the most heavily discussed and researched phenomenon. Globalization has drastically changed the way organizations conduct business, thus blurring the world's borders. More and more organizations have business operations abroad with goals to reduce overhead cost, grow diverse economies in a palatable way, and to provide opportunity for other nations, particularly those that could use an economic boost. One of the most utilized operating models instrumental in the global economy is outsourcing. Outsourcing has become a means of lowering costs with maintaining a claim of higher quality of service. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the quality of customer service from United States organizations with internationally outsourced call centers. This thesis also considers the detriment of international outsourcing by domestic organizations to the rising United States unemployment rate. The purpose of this quantitative study was to conduct a customer satisfaction survey on availability, call center staff, services, cultural implications, and overall customer satisfaction ratings of outsourced call centers. This study found that customers or clients of domestic organizations will rate the quality of internationally outsourced customer service call centers lower than the quality of domestically based call centers. It was also substantiated that the general public perceives the international outsourcing of customer service call centers by domestic organizations as a detriment to the rising United States unemployment rate