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Home-based remote work for call centers to increase by 375% by 2012.

The trend for call centre workers to be based from home is set to increase rapidly over the next five years as businesses look to cut customer service costs.

There are currently around 47,000 home-based outsourced call centre workers working 20 hours per week or more globally - predominantly in the US - and Datamonitor predicts this will rise to almost 224,000 by 2012.

The different demographic profile of home-based agents is one of the reasons companies are going down this route. They tend to be older and have more work experience than typical call centre workers, have higher customer satisfaction levels and lower attrition rates, according to vendors of home-based agent services.

The main industry sectors embracing the home call-centre agent model are healthcare, insurance, technology, tourism and travel.

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