Yesterday at the White House Jobs Forum, President Obama called out to Angie Selden, CEO of Arise, because her company has helped create thousands of customer service jobs.

By developing a network of jobs that operate out of American homes, the company is helping to reverse the trend of hiring customer service reps overseas.

Through Arise, customer service reps work out of their homes. Bye bye brick-and-mortar call centers and say hello to customer service served up the American way: In the future, customer service reps will answer your emails from their iPhones and Xboxes.

Today, customer service reps use their secured personal computers and answer live chats and emails at home. “There’s no reason why that customer service rep can’t be mobile,” says Jim Walker, the CTO of Arise. Call centers are not cube centric anymore and this allows people to have more flexibility in their lives.

Mothers and other people who want to work at home can become Arise Certified Professional. Sounds sketchy, but these ACPs have to go through a background check, take tests and be certified on certain platforms. The ACPs can choose any client in the Arise network — if you like hospitality or travel, you may want to pick a cruise line to answer questions for.

“Homeshoring gives companies the chance to hire customer representatives that know the specific product and the culture,” says Walker. Of course, working from home has its benefits too: You save money on gas and you probably spend many days in your pajamas (so no dry cleaning bills). “You can work when you are most productive,” says Walker.

“Social networks are becoming support centers of the future. People go to blogs and discussion boards to get customer service from our clients,” says Walker. Don’t worry though, you won’t be hearing a garbage truck in the background just yet. Walker isn’t talking about sending phone calls to the customer service reps’ cell phones, only text communication through email and chat rooms. If the thought of answering emails and resolving issues in chat rooms appeals to you, you’re in luck: Arise is looking to hire 3,000 people.

Image: flickr/ ShaneRobinson

Yesterday, Obama and I Asked Arise To Bring Jobs Back Home is a post from: TechStartups.com