and yes they dont seem to care.
There is a difference between remote workers and outsourcing, in my opinion.
Outsourcing your support is when you pay someone else (generally an outsourcing firm) to do the tasks, but having people work remotely isn't necessarily the same thing. I understand outsourcing as attempting to get the most tickets done in the shortest amount of time in order to increase profitability, even if the quality is lacking. However, when you hire someone to work remotely, you can tell them to slow down and really look at the details involved. I think it is OK to have administrators work remotely, as long as they can be trusted.
That's true but I think it's important to draw a line between them. Although they're both technically outsourced, the standard in quality is quite different.
If you're hiring some firm to handle your support tickets, you don't have that same one to one interaction or training that you can provide when it's just one remote worker. Usually (at least in my experience) the firms aren't very good at what they set out to do anyway.
I do agree with you on that one. Having your own workers doing their job from another location might simply be because of better infrastructure/work possibilities on the other location. In its core those people are still workers for your company and you can apply all your company training procedures and better build their loyalty. You can still have a close connection with your staff, doing regular trips and participating in different meetings/training sessions.
In the case of outsourcing, you can still demand a set of rules and procedures to be applied by the outsourcing firm, but you can never build that close connection and educate your employees to fight for building and improving your company reputation. :rolleyes2