Mr. Lebourdais,
Pricewaterhousecoopers has conducted a call center study for the greater toronto area. The report is available at http://gregwarren.ca/docs/callcentrestudy.pdf Te report was commissioned by the greater toronto marketing alliance as a community initiative so I hope you find it useful (i had to dig thru a lot of old files for that info!!)
Also, as Mr. Naagar rightly mentioned that call centers provide a good amount of employment which varies from 2% to 3% of the population for developed countries such as US, UK, France, Germany and there are various other benefits which one does not quickly perceive.
In India this is a relatively new sector and for this reason as well as lack of other similarly compensating jobs the young see it as a career unlike as in developed countries. However this is bound to change as the industry matures when call centers will be looking to employ housewives & retired professionals allowing them to earn extra income (afterall the english literacy rate in India is highly bloated and has not been audited)
From my studies I have found that call centers infact induce a vast social change. The primary benefit is by increasing the standard of life. This is done by making more and more companies accountable for their service. This ranges from basic utilities to consumables and services. It forces companies (and even govt councils as demonstrated in UK) to go the extra mile.
Mr. Lebourdais, I’d be happy to deeply participate in this discussion, if interested we could start another article thread.
Have a nice day!
Sandeep