Frontier Airlines won’t route your call thousands of miles farther than they fly, like sending the call to the Phillippines when you’re trying to buy a ticket from Denver to Albuquerque. Among airlines, they’re an exception, as more and more companies are closing U.S.-based call centers.

Cost is the obvious motivation for sending a call center abroad:

Average pay for U.S. call-center workers is $10 to $12 an hour; at outsourced call centers, employer costs can be 10 percent to 20 percent lower, Butler said. Frontier reservations agents start at close to $9 an hour; more- senior employees make more.

Frontier and others are realizing that these international call centers may be penny-wise, pound-foolish. Customer satisfaction with outsourced customer service, especially to offshore locations, runs low. Some corporations, like Dell, American Express, and US Airways, have backpedaled, bringing some calls back to the United States after consumers complained enough.

If you piss off your customers with phone reps who don’t understand the rules or the product (a problem with any outsourced call center, regardless of nationality) what good are the cost savings?

Agents Along for the Ride [Denver Post] (Thanks, Brandon!)

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