Call Centers in the Philippines

Call centers in the Philippines have multiplied and expanded over the past few years. The booming industry started from just providing email support and other services and grew to other types of customer service, technical support, travel services, and other services. Business process outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) are two of the fastest growing industries in the country.

Call centers in the Philippines provide offshore manpower for a considerable chunk of the outsourcing market. This success stems from the country’s relatively low cost labor, real estate, and telecommunications and its highly skilled and English proficient workforce. Also, the country takes pride in providing high quality customer service through polite, educated, and empathetic workers.

There are several call centers in the Philippines, some of them located in the big cities outside the capital, Metro Manila. Many contact centers within the capital are located in Makati City, Mandaluyong City, Muntinlupa City, and Quezon City. Other popular outsourcing destinations within the country include Metro Davao and Metro Cebu. Call centers in the Philippines offer two general types with different branches of support and service. Inbound handles technical support, customer inquiries and concerns, directory assistance and others, while Outbound takes care of sales verification, surveys, callbacks, and sales, among other types of accounts.

Companies looking to save money while still provide high quality service can choose to outsource some of their non-core business processes and customer support to call centers in the Philippines. Some companies take a slightly different solution by setting up a contact center of their own. With the country’s fairly friendly investment and labor policies, that sort of solution is still cost effective if a company builds its call center in a special economic zone.

On the other hand, outsourcing to a service provider has its own advantages and disadvantages, as a company won’t have to worry about recruitment and human resources management. There are several call centers in the Philippines to choose from; it’s only a matter of finding one that suits a company’s needs.

Call centers in the Philippines will need to stay competitive to keep the market share they already have and possibly take a much larger chunk of the pie. To accomplish this, experts agree that industry leaders should work hand in hand with the government to improve working conditions for call center agents, work to lower attrition (employee turnover rates), capitalize on markets that have opened up (including knowledge-based processes), and coordinate on what needs to be done. Also, the government and call centers in the Philippines also need to improve telecommunications infrastructure and provide English proficiency and other pertinent training to potential call center agents.

Industry experts see a lot of potential in the growing global outsourcing market, and if call centers in the Philippines can maintain its best-in-class service then more and more companies will be persuaded to outsource in the country. The country generates income while companies can save money from lower wage and operational costs. All in all, it’s a win-win situation.