[mnehr]

That is a very short timeframe that you have.
I am not sure if there are specific guidelines because each industry has different needs regarding customer service.
I have dealt with many service-oriented companies (wireless, paging, internet) who consolidated their call centers only to regret it in the long run.

What is impossible to put into numbers is the personal attention that representatives give to their local customers, as well as not overwhelming representatives with too much information for too many market areas. From an accounting perspective, yes, consolidating call centers seems to be an positive economic move. From a human perspective, however, you have to weigh what responsibilities will it place on your representatives.

For most industries, call center representatives are not always the cream of the crop. With a lower paying job, like CSR, you are more bound to be hiring people who are newer into the workforce, with little or no college. The simple fact is that in most areas, anyone who is experienced with college degrees will be looking for something better. How much information/systems can the average CSR handle?

Much of my speculation on this comes from being in the quality area of call center operations, and is overlooked by GMs and accounting departments all the time. You must take into account the quality level that consolidated service reps can give versus regionalized representatives who are not required to know as much information. None of this may apply to your industry, but I would, with out question, weigh what quality impacts centralizing your call centers may have.