Keep Call Centers In America Act- The Truth

00:00Hi, Tom Laird here. You've heard me breakdown contact center technology on the RFP podcast time and time again. Now it's time for me to help you with your challenges. As your contact center technology advisor through our new company Expivia Digital, I can help you with things like CCaaS selection, any type of AI implementation, and nice studio and integration services. It's the same honest advice you hear on the geek applied specifically to your operation. Visit ExpiviaDigital.com to get started. That's ExpiviaDigital.com. Welcome back everybody to another episode of Advice from a call center geek. The call center contact center podcast, we try to give you some action but let's take back into the contact center, improve your overall quality, improve the agent experience, hopefully improve your customer experience as well. How's everybody doing? It's been a long time. It's the longest I've gone without doing an episode. This summer has been just crazy with Expivia, but also with trying to get really auto in an awesome spot, it's there's just been no time.

00:59And that's a shame because this is my baby. And let's fall kind. Kind of starts, even though we're, we're kind of still in the middle of the summer here. I plan on getting back to these much more regularly, hopefully back to the once a week. I have a. Kind of a backlog of content that I want get into as well. So, but this, this kind of spurred me yesterday. And as I'm recording this, it's the 5th of August in 2025. It's probably going to be the largest or at least in the top three most viewed LinkedIn posts that I've ever done including video and the kind of the text version post of it and that's talking about the brand new Keep Call Centers and America Act that was just kind of put out there and introduced. It's the official name of it is the Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025. It was Rit was introduced on July 30. So a couple days ago, but it really just started to kind of funnel out really after the weekend.b and it rit and.A. and it was introduced in a bipartisan way, which we never see anymore by by Senator Arizona and and Jim Justice of West Virginia. I think that makes sense West Virginia has a pretty heavy. Domestic contact center operation and also you know if You talk about Phoenix you talk about Arizona, they have a very large contact center, USA contact center presence as well.

02:33So again, what is this bill doing? And again, I want to get relent about this for real. nobody panic right now for what I'm about to get especially if you're an offshore context and relax we're going to get we're going to get keep it real like I'm not going to get crazy here but I think we got to lay the kind of the groundwork of what this actually says. So again, this is a bipartisan bill that is aimed at stopping off-shoring and also probably trying to onshore or also stopping kind of the over automation and there's kind of a transparency piece too with AI, which, I don't know if that's gonna happen or not. [pricing remark omitted] You can't alone now and then offshore later because then there's clawbacks. So they can come back after that money too. So it's kind of teethy. The kind of the transparency. Deal is so let's just summarize that quickly. So that basically says all companies, we'll have to go put loans, grants, and then as we get into this too, we'll talk about federal work, they will be, I don't want to say barred, because it it, the transparency piece of this, right? Agents must disclose their physical to customers, upon request, right?

05:39So how many times did you, have you heard that before? I'm in, I'm in Kansas. I'm in, my name is Tom, right? Trying to kind of get a little bit away from that, they have to also disclose, you know, when AI is being used. So disclose. So upfront. When they first talk, inbound and outbound. Hey, this is an AI bought. And then give the option to be transferred to a USA South Africa, and. You want to talk to an American agent. You have to be given that option and and the same thing, when it comes to ai, right? You can talk to the AI, or you have, or you have to give the option to a USA rep. Not a human, but a human USA rep, right And again, getting into that federal work, right, all call center work, under a federal contract must be performed inside the United States.

06:43That should still be there. I mean, no matter what this. And then no federal contacts allowed for offshore or AI only shops, which is see how long that last, but that's kind of where we are. now. The Department of Labor will track and report AI job bosses in the contact center space will also audit how Who supports this? Who doesn't support it? Again, the USA contact centers like me, I s support it. I mean, I know. I.

[Gap 07:16–07:25: no reliable transcription]

07:25for this as well, because most of that is shifting right offshore, nearshore. But it is backed by a couple of labor unions, you know, one specifically is the Communication Workers of America. They've been pushing for a lot of stuff for a lot of, for a lot of a, But still, they came out with a statement on this that was very, very, very supportive. You know, I think you you get when you start talking about Fortune 500 500, Fortune 100. V companies that are all have massive offshore, you know, footprints, you know, I think that's where you'll get a lot of pushback here. So this, this there have been bills like this and to kind of do a researcher, there's There's been bills like this over the last 20 years that have come and they've gone. Nothing, nothing has really come about with them. a In 2000, I believe 15, 15, 16, don't quote my date on that.

08:23There was a Democratic bill that had about 16, 17 senators that were for it. The Republican side was actually kind of against this. I think we've seen a shift now, though, of American and workers and coming back on shore on the Republican side. So maybe this has a little bit more teeth. Most of those senators are still there. So we'll see, but let's talk about where this thing is. So again, just to quickly summarize, again, you put your name on a list. You're basically on that list for five years. You can't get any federal loans. [pricing remark omitted] You're basically not going to get any type of federal government programs programs either, especially if you're a BPO, which I know a lot of. big deal because again you have a teleperformance.. You have these. Giant BPOs that I have huge onshore, huge offshore, huge's nearshore, presences. We'll have to see how that math all works out, but 30% that it comes out of committee, and then the Senate, and then also the House to kind of pass this in its current form, right? If it did, I mean, it's going to trigger a massive wave of resh y, shoring, but, but but it, also, going to do a massive, massive adoption of AI, which I don't think is that bad of a thing either, especially if that AI has to be done here in the States, because again a BPO and.

10:17and a BPO and the USA BPOs that are AI forward, like Expivia, like us, that would be a godsend. But there are, you know, there are a ton of, of seats offshore, right? I think, I think it would have massive disruption, but I think we kind of figure that stuff out. But you know, I've had a lot of friends that have said, you know, listen, the wait times will get worse, customer service will get worse. There's not enough heads here in the states. Hours will get cut because of just the cost. they couldn't keep it 24 seven. goes, there'd be carve outs for that. I'm sure there'd be that will, H,

[Gap 11:35–12:04: no reliable transcription]

12:04I think that could bere kind of a middle compromise right with this thing, but I think the AI piece And again, there's kind So if you use AI to make outbound calls without permission, then you're in violation of you're basically using a robocall. So there's some of those definitions that I think are going to come into play with how AI is being utilized. And maybe there is a carve out too that a lot of this AI has to be done here in the States. So we push AI, adoption here in the states, but still allow a lot. of those companies that are using offshore resources to continue to utilize them. This is pretty heavy handed and I think that there's a. A middle ground that could happen here, but I don't see this bill and it's. passing this will be something that is I think they're putting out there again.

13:39Like I said to be kind of pulled on that people discuss people talk about take out some. those pieces and then that will end up into a giant kind of AI bill that you're going to see in the next year or so, which I think could be still good for USA contact center outsourcers, BPOs, USA contact center agents, but doesn't absolutely crush the nearshore offshore markets and all of the seats that are utilized there. So again, go on my LinkedIn, there's a huge Um and it's been a you know real back and forth and I think the really good thoughts of of kind of what this could mean But don't panic yet, especially if you're an offshore or your bpo You know While I would love to see this selfishly You know, I think for the good of the market It probably is not a great bill in its current form. And you know, we'll kind of see how this all all plays out But again, it's kind of good to get back Just want to do a quick one today talk about this since it was such a hot button item I think it's like 40 Again, thank you guys for joining and love to hear more discussion on this if you guys have any thoughts.