How many call centers are there?

This is a hard question to answer, because the truth is nobody knows. A lot depends on how you define a center. Do you define it by the number of people who can work there at any one time ( seats )? Or by the kind of technology used in it? Or by the basic function some people don t count either dedicated inbound or outbound centers, for their own strange reasons. Sometimes people count the number of call centers within a certain industry, and try to extrapolate something broader from that, which is dangerous and a little bit foolish.

Because of this, and the fact that call centers are traditionally hidden within corporations that don t talk about them, it s hard to get an accurate count. Add to this confusion: many of the analysts who study the numbers question really don t have any idea what they are measuring. We are just at the dawn of the era of good analysis.

That being said, here s my guess. Based on the broadest possible definition, I think that there are somewhere closeto 140,000 call centers in the US and Canada. There are perhaps 20,000 more scattered around the world. That 140,000 number is based on anecdotal reports of growth over the last few years, on an extrapolation from a known figure (the 67,000 call centers that are known to exist using a particular type of technology, and a best guess as to the number that are not), and a...