Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton explains why home delivery questions are answered by people in the Philippines:
Most people who complain to me about the outsourced customer service would rather have Americans doing this work. In a time of 8 percent unemployment, so would I. But honestly that’s not going to happen. The Post is in cost-cutting mode, as it must be until a new economic model is found that will finance print, Web, mobile, and tablet editions of The Post. Outsourcing is vastly cheaper. …
Many years ago these functions used to be in-house. Then they were outsourced to companies with call centers in rural parts of the United States where wages were lower. Then they went to Asia. Today, circulation managers here in the District say that since customer service was outsourced to the company in Asia, the number of complaints has trended downward significantly.
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