Seeking to manage customer service costs, many U.S. firms locate their call centers for handing customer service inquiries overseas. The cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad in India are centers for much of this action. Employees at these locations are trained in American English usage, accents, and slang, and watch U.S. television shows (on company time!) to be current with social trends and norms. Using Western names (e.g., Alice for Anjali, Sarah for Sharmila, and Sam for Shankar) and pop-up screens based on the customer’s zip code to learn about “local” weather conditions, these employees become indistinguishable in the customer’s perception from a person located in mainland
United States.

Required:
a. Suppose that you are the supervisor of such a call center. What kinds of nonfinancial measures and controls might you use to ensure that employees are optimally utilized and that costs are managed to their lowest level?
b. Suppose one measure you adopt is the amount of time spent per call. What are the costs and benefits of using this measure?
c. Why do many companies also permit the supervisor to monitor (on a random basis and invisible to both the customer and the call center employee) calls received by the call center?