Uncle Sam is trying to make American call centers great again. The question is whether they will be great because they're filled with local workers or whether this will provide yet another excuse for companies to turn customer service jobs over to AI.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously (or as unanimously as a body missing two of its five members can decide) Thursday to proceed with drafting rules that would require companies under its purview to begin onshoring customer service call center operations - at least to a degree. 

"We propose to limit the percentage of customer service calls that providers may make from or answer at foreign call centers to a specified percentage," the Commission wrote in the draft [PDF] notice of proposed rulemaking (the voted-on version has not been published as of writing). "We believe that such a cap would encourage movement of call center operations back to the U.S."

The FCC Is hoping the public will weigh in on that percentage should be, and whether it could be reduced over time to further force onshoring. 

The FCC justified the proposal by citing not only privacy and security concerns that have recently been raised surrounding overseas customer service call centers, but also by admitting what everyone already knows: Customer service in the industries it regulates plain sucks. 

"Communications providers regulated by the FCC," the Commish explained, are part of "an industry that consistently ranks amongst the lowest in customer satisfaction surveys."

That's true, at least anecdotally: Do a quick online search for worst customer service, and ISPs, cellular carriers, cable companies, and others that fall under the FCC's purview are usually right up there at the top (or bottom).

In addition to requiring a certain percentage of calls to be handled by US call centers, the FCC also proposed in the rule to require informing callers if the agent answering their call is located overseas, requiring transfer to a US-based agent upon request, and limiting transactions involving sensitive customer data to US call center agents only.

Additionally, the measure takes steps to address call center spam by using financial tools (fees and bonds) to ensure they don't moonlight as scam outfits. It also proposes increased English proficiency requirements for foreign call center agents in instances where they're still used. 

All this, naturally, begs the question of whether any company operating an overseas call center would opt to pay an American agent American wages for the same role. The FCC understands that. 

"We recognize...that those changes could come with costs to communications service providers," the FCC noted in the proposal, noting the need to "strike a balance between achieving our goals while not imposing undue costs on these companies." 

Why deal with costs, though, when you could just automate your call center entirely? 

Rick Ruth, director of carrier relations and regulatory affairs at call center automation outfit CTM, seems to be ready and waiting for the added business courtesy of the FCC.

"Organizations may well expand the use of AI-driven classification, routing, and automation for initial customer interactions rather than absorb the cost of a fully domestic workforce," Ruth told The Register in an email. He explained that he believes the most likely scenario is for AI to manage triage and intake, with humans reserved for complicated or sensitive issues. 

That said, there are plenty of reasons why automating call centers might not be the best idea. It hasn't worked well, for one, with around half the companies who try it giving up completely. In cases where AI agents are called upon as assistants for human employees, bots haven't fared much better, with many call center agents having trouble making their AI assistants useful.

Either way, it'll take some time for this proposal to wind its way through the FCC's systems - first comes a comment period, then drafting actual rules based on that feedback. By then, who knows how good AI customer service agents will be. ®

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• FCC
• Federal government of the United States
• Telecommunications

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