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Philippines Call Centers are in Full Bloom
Because of its incredible expansion over the last 15 years the business of opening up Philippines Call Centers has been dubbed the Sunshine Industry by the Philippine government. Even today, the call center outsourcing industry is considered one of the fastest growing sectors within the Philippine economy.
Philippines call centers started as basic providers of e-mail response and management for myriad customer relations services travel assistance, tech-support, customer care, and financial and education services. Online support aimed at business-to-customer and business-to-business support was also a popular service provided by the first Philippines call centers.
Being that Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is generally regarded as one of the fastest growing global industries it should be of little surprise that the Philippines call center industry is busting at the proverbial seems.
Why Philippines Call Centers?
The Philippines are regarded as such an ideal place for call center facilities for a number of compelling reasons. For starters, Philippine facilities have inherently low operational and labor costs associated with them. Even today the Philippines is the top destination for outsourcing and has grabbed more than her share of the world’s $200-billion business process outsourcing industry. In fact, today there are close to 2,000 call centers dispersed throughout the tiny island country.
The People Behind Philippines Call Centers
The majority of the Philippines call centers require college graduates who are perfectly fluent in English and capable of understanding the products and or services they are contracted to represent. Agents also need to have excellent communication and interpersonal skills. In order to ensure quality agents the recruitment process at minimum involves an initial telephone screening which determines the applicants telephone voice quality and how the well they respond to the callers requests. The next stages involve a more formal set of interviews conducted by a human resources professional who may administer tests designed to quantitatively asses speaking skills, confidence, attitude, and problem solving ability.
US Recession: an economic tsunami
The recession currently being weathered by the United States is being felt all over the world and the Philippines is no exception. With less money being made domestically we are importing far less exportable goods and services resulting in a substantial reduction in employment opportunities for Overseas Filipino Workers. In reaction, the Philippine government devised a program designed to provide Filipino domestic workers state-sponsored training for the overseas workers to work in call centers. The program is a very successful part of the Philippine’s vocational scholarship program and is fully funded by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration. The vocational training project is aimed at improving English proficiency and providing quality call center facility training for under $1000 per student. This will provide an influx of highly trained individuals ready to staff the many Philippines call centers.
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