For starters, says Loynd, there are improvements in technology such as broadband to the home and voice-over-Internet-protocol that make it easy to work from home while simultaneously giving companies confidence that the calls will be answered and the performance be tracked.

A more timely consideration: The price of gasoline. Ask a customer service rep to drive 25 miles to come to work, and it's costing them $5 in gas each way. Let them stay at home, and the $10 stays in their own pocket.

Loynd forecasts that by 2010, there will be 300,000 home-based outsourcing agents in the United States, double the number he says are in the country today.

Listen to Arise's Selden, and it would seem that the sales pitch is a fairly easy one. Given the capabilities of broadband, she points out, there is really no geographic boundary for accessing talent. Companies that continue to use brick-and-mortar call centers, she says, are pretty much constrained by that 25-mile radius when seeking employees.

What's more, companies have more flexibility in staffing with virtual agents than if they were to have agents who arrive on location to do six or eight hours of work in a stint. "Homeshoring creates a completely efficient market," she says. "Because calls don't arrive in nice tidy six- or eight-hour patterns. With us, you can staff up or down according to your needs on an hourly basis."

The concept is compelling enough that a number of well-known firms use Arise agents, including Virgin America, Walgreens, Home Depot, and Carnival Cruise Lines.

And here's the most surprising part: The people sitting at home answering the phone aren't lazy slackers who can't find their way out the door in the morning. The typical Arise agent is 38, with some college education.

Need a licensed insurance agent on the other end of the line? Arise has them, and pays them accordingly: $25 to $35 an hour. Want experienced sales people motivated more by commission? Arise has them too, and pays them about $18 plus commission.

Four of the largest AAA associations use Arise agents, knowing that when you car breaks down at 4:00 a.m. and you tell the agent that you've got a flat on Interstate 95 near South of the Border, a confused foreign call center employee won't send a tow truck to Mexico instead of to you, stranded near the amusement park in South Carolina.

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