Cost effective and reliable way to answer calls for home services

For those who own/operate locally focused home services businesses (HVAC, landscaping, etc) - have you thought about or are already employing someone remotely (onshore or offshore) to answer the inbound calls and emails during business hours? Main responsibilities would be triaging calls with sales people or technicians if there's a customer service issue.

Obviously there's an option of hiring someone locally and having enough scope for that person to justify paying full time salary, but was curious if anyone pursued options for remote (non local) employees for more cost effective solution as this job really doesn't need to be an in-office job and I live in an area with very high cost of living.