Call Centers

Call centers are a dime a dozen here in Costa Rica and are especially present in the San Jose area.Call centers exist for three reasons mainly: 1) for inbound service support from major brands 2) outbound telemarketing, and for 3) inbound call-in betting.

Some of the major corporations have outsourced this service to Costa Rica because it is significantly cheaper to pay a Costa Rican than a North American to make or receive calls. The reason Costa Rica has become so popular is due to the high amounts of bilingual young men and women who are coming out of the major highschools prepared to work. As many of the private highschools offer a second language such as English or French the students are able to work for a variety of different global companies.

If you open up any local newspaper to the jobs section you will see several ads for call centers looking to recruit new employees. Call centers provide jobs for thousands of people, especially young people, and they pay pretty well too on average for Costa Rican standards. If you talk to many young people between the 17 and 35 many of them have worked or are currently working in the call center industry. Many foreigners who come to Costa Rica looking for work usually end up working in a call center for a while since call centers are frequently looking for native speakers of any language to take up management positions in case there is an issue with a client.

The sports betting related call centers are also extremely popular. The attraction for these types of businesses is that gambling is technically legal in Costa Rica and therefore they are permitted to receive this type of action. Of all of the business types in all of Costa Rica it was one of the ONLY industires to not really be affected y the global world crisis.

Call centers are very intense environments that have special software to receieve the numerous amounts of calls each day. Employees of call centers usually have high quotas to meet and have to work long hours. Many employees get burnt out very quickly; hence, the high levels of turnover each month.