eBay to boost customer support with eBay@Home

eBay has revealed its new customer support initiative called eBay@Home They say it is the company’s first formal work from home scheme within the Global Customer Experience organisation. It will create close to 300 remote, full-time customer service positions globally, including 120 positions in the USA, by the end of 2018.

After the successful launch of eBay@Home in Ireland in 2017, along with a work-from-home programme in the StubHub business unit, eBay is now bringing it to the USA, immediately hiring over 40 new eBay@Home roles in Akron, OH. eBay also is inviting 80 existing customer service employees currently based in its Salt Lake City, Utah and Austin, Texas, facilities to join the eBay@Home programme in their home states.

eBay@Home will allow us to get closer to our customers in the communities in which they live and work to better serve their needs. The caliber of applicants in the Akron area has exceeded our expectations, and we’re thrilled to officially welcome our first new hires into the eBay family.
– Paul Gazeley, Head of North America Customer Service Operations at eBay

All eBay@Home employees will receive locally competitive pay and full-time benefits and will be fully integrated into the eBay community. In addition to receiving the technology necessary for their jobs, eBay@home teammates will receive five weeks’ paid virtual classroom and on-the-job training.

It’s perhaps worth noting that this is a case of eBay innovating back to the standard practice it employed years ago: in the earliest days of the marketplace all customer support reps were located at home. Most notably Griff, Jim Griffiths, the first customer support worker at eBay started off as a seller and then worked remotely from his home in New England. Certainly with technological improvements though, in the intervening two decades or so, it has become easier to operate effectively and remotely in such a job.