Downtime & Opportunity Loss From Brownouts
Manila has been known for random brownouts during the hot summer months. The major energy provider, Meralco schedules these brownouts notifying the public in advance; sometimes, this is not the case. A brownout can last for two to three hours, primarily because Meralco simply cannot supply enough power. If you tried to scale any team of agents, part or all of the team would be impacted. Their systems become inoperable due to no power access during a brownout. High quality boutique firms and major centers typically have back up that kick in within minutes of a power interruption, thus the disturbance to business is minimal.
Rewards From Interaction
When you control the environment, you can impact favorable change. The rollout of a new script, policy, or procedural change is much more effective when you can sit down in a quiet environment and personally deliver the message. You can answer any questions and see the facial expressions and body language enabling you to identify individuals who may not completely understand. With today’s technology you can use skype and other online tools but nothing beats human contact. When you have large amounts of money invested I am always in the court of putting your best foot forward.
The Temptations with Working From Home
The controlled environment is very important; especially when you are working in a third world country. The peripheral distractions and natural gap between no hands on coaching, continuous training, and simple positive reinforcement is a recipe for disaster. One of my mentors would say the only thing worse than making a lot of phone calls is making those calls alone. The importance of a team environment and a team leader is to build morale, motivate, and manage successful teams. Our company builds highly functional and flexible teams. Focus requires management oversight. Agents will not be signing in on time and will go to the bathroom without signing out.
Unstable Internet Connection
Internet lines that are connected to homes and condos are compromised due to the residential connection and no SLA (Service Level Agreement). In the Philippines bandwidth is always moved around based on where it is needed most. Further in regards to ramping up agents it can sometimes take up to 2 months to get an IPLC (Internet Private Leased Circuit) line activated. And in some cases you may even be denied.
Impact of Health Benefits
Many at-home model companies do not offer great private health insurance. Private health insurance by far is the biggest benefit a company can provide to their employees in the Philippines. Health insurance is just as important to a Filipino as an American. Being exposed to health care in the Philippines made me appreciate the great doctors and medications available in the U.S. One would experience long lines and inadequate care using the public health option. Not providing private health care is perceived as cutting corners or that a company is not financially stable.When I worked for AOL, they took the stance that since they were asking you to take care of their client’s than it was their social responsibility to take care of you. Our company offers Maxicare, which is considered the best private health insurance you can provide for your employees within the first two weeks of employment. I do not know of any other company in the Philippines that does this.
Not the Ideal Kind of Noise
It is a fact that many call center agents in the Philippines live with their families. This is in some ways similar to when immigrants migrated to the US and sometimes three or more families would live together. The Philippines is a religious country and family is very important. It is common that a call center agent will work, support the family and also be the one to send a sibling to college. Some homes have 10 people living in them with children. Even with the best noise canceling headsets, you will hear background noise including children, roosters, and arguments between family members. You will certainly hear people speaking Tagalog in the background contrary to an English only policy.
What Are You Really Saving?
In every instance when a client has left my center to try the at-home model, they have experienced more problems. The complaints are usually about poor quality, service, and the inability to achieve continuity between their respective teams. From a cost perspective after you add up everything you may even be experiencing a loss. After thoroughly reviewing the dynamics of the at-home model, it is obvious that a modern call center provides better quality service. It has been said that the end justifies the means. But in this case, success is measured in profits. To increase your bottom line, you need effective efficient highly functional, and flexible teams; delivered with dependable service, which is consistently provided in a supervised call center.