Four Years of Love

I have to stop writing about call center, and congratulate my good friend and former co-worker Fernelle C. Rodriguez on his four year anniversary with David Smith. Fernelle was the chief Copy Editor of Sun.Star Bacolod, while I was one of the reporters.

Fernelle is now happily based in Rochester, New York, wherein he is presently taking up his Masters in Journalism. You can read his majestic articles at http://fernellerodriguez.blogspot.com

His message to me:

My friends,

It is 10:10 p.m. David picked me up downtown (I came from school) and we both went to dinner to celebrate our 4th year anniversary. You are all part of this wonderful moment.

Love you all and thank you for all your support.

Fernelle

I hope to see you my friend in the near future!

Robert

Hello Is This Call Center?

By Roberto L. Bacasong
Company Writer
Unique Interaction

'PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT'

SOUNDS FAMILIAR? isn't it?
Yes, this is call center. Relatively young but considered as vibrant industry in the Philippines. Wanna be part of this industry? Definitely, the answer is always yes.

Why would that be? This is a workplace where dominated by yuppie Filipinos. So it means that Filipino men and women ages 18 to 25 have the huge number of this elite circle in the world of customer service. Employers also welcomed elder people to apply. Age does not matter, according to one of the call center executives whom he preferred to keep his identity. In general, call center does not require you to be young. The important factor for you to get employed is your capability of speaking English. Of course, this is an obvious requirement because the clients are from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. An off-shore industry like call center cannot be just ignored right away.

Call center is not only required to speaking excellent English all the time. There's so much opportunity to be offered by the call center companies despite the high attrition rate. The expertise in keeping the posture of professionalism, politeness and can stay longer in a shift schedule is a plus factor. An agent should quick to adopt the changes in a fast-paced environment in call center.

Some says that many are quiting call center job because of its hazardous effect on the humans health. Others point of view, on the other hand, want to be in the industry because of the attractive benefits it may offer to the successful candidates. Both are true, everyone of us are entitled to one's opinion. But the meat of the matter is, the flourishing business process outsourcing generate millions of pesos to the Philippine Government.

Influential sector like the business group very much excited on how call center industry lift up the lives of every Filipino people. The business group expressed their gratitude to outsourcing locators for choosing the Philippines against its neighboring Asian countries.

Customer service is a tough job. But to people who learned to value the culture of this career contributed to the amazing improvement on their lifestyle. Many agents succeeded from the harsh good and bad interpretation of this industry. That's why the Philippines is always a top choice nation by the outsourcers'. Impressive characteristics such learning how to sympathized and emphatized won the heart of the clients against other competing countries.

We have so much things to be proud of being a Filipino. Our history will tell us why. Our ancestors who were known to be patriotic, brave, intelligent, creative, religious and English speaker, are among the strong reasons written from the past.

The country not only as a tourism hub, call center became a word of mouth which is very familiar now to the younger generation. Now, the parents need not to worry that their children can afford to pass the trials in a very keen process of applying for a call center job.

So the industry must go on. Its a good thing because we dominated this aside over a decade years now. The interest of the national government is welcome as long as it will not involve politicking and personal interest. Working together for the progress of the nation is the number factor.

So are you ready to be a call center agent now? Practice English everyday because “practice makes perfect”.*

The Wonders of Live Chat Support in Outsourcing

By Roberto L. Bacasong
Company Writer
Unique Interaction

ANOTHER way of doing customer service is through the use of live chat support which is now gaining positive response aside from the famous inbound and outbound customer service management. This is a simple way of assisting clients worldwide because it requires the agents to be proficient in grammar, can type at least an average of 25 words per minute and most importantly, can respond quickly to the concerns of the customers.

Unlike with voice support, a customer service representative often encountered irate clients and sometime being discriminated on their race identification, among others. But regardless on how they help their customers, Filipinos customer service was proven and tested in telephoning communication. Clients from the United States easily pissed them if they failed to receive enough services they wanted. If this will continue, no wonder that the next move would end up in cancellation the program they purchased.

The introduction of chat support is a great wonder to the outsourcing because it gives the opportunity for the customers to deal one-on-one coaching with the agent using this technology. In many contact centers today in the Philippines, live chat support are now offered because call center locators believe that customers are their lifeblood and no matter what happen addressing the customers' problem should be listed a top priority.

Meanwhile, Melanie Mae P. Lagasca, a chat operator for Unique Interaction, disclosed that she is now accustomed using the live chat support services. Previously, Ms. Lagasca came from the inbound account but was transferred to chat account, as part of the company's way of giving quality help to the customers.

“I encountered angry customers on live chat support but the thing is, I can fully address their concerns after looking on the customers' account. Chat support service is broad and in general this is fun,” said the 24-year-old lass from Bulacan province.

Speaking in Filipino and English, she said: “Chat support improves my skills in typing and I become more conscious of my grammar and I also learned how to handle the HTML code. I learned new things everyday and I treasure this opportunity to work in call center which greatly help me in supporting my family.”

Agents assigned for a chat support were trained the workings of this services. First, they were brief about the background of the program. Once they know everything, then they started to explore some basic jargons related on this account. Since the account is complicated to learn at the beginning but later on the knowledge will continue to spark the chat operators.

If the customers were satisfied with the service offered by a chat agent, usually they give good remarks to the agent's performance. This is true, because the agents were also evaluate how they deal with the customers. If their remarks “NI” (needs improvement) this is something to give continuous coaching and reorientation to the agents to avoid getting this remark again and again. Everything can be sorted out properly through proper forum.

Today, ecommerce sites improve their sales because of the live chat software as a standard way of customer service. Call center executives interpret that this technology is a powerful customer interaction and support solution that offers substantial advantages to clients. Because online shoppers or Internet users rapidly increasing, chat tool gives positive outcome by helping the customers decide which is the best pick to choose. This tool can help strengthen upselling and generate loyalty by enabling live, person-to-person communication.

A survey conducted by eMarketer in 2000 showed that retail revenues from online shopping worldwide will increase to 35.3 billion by 2002. However, according to Yankelovich Partners, there is a problem: Nearly two-thirds of Web users are unwilling to purchase products without human interaction.

Another research from Andersen consulting, revealed that 63% of consumers surveyed did not compete an online transaction because they could not find necessary informal. With less than adequate information, they frequently don't buy at all or end up buying the wrong product and ultimately, return it.

Ecommerce companies especially outsourcing, lead the customers in a way that they will learn and earn the benefits from the products they bought. This is not only for the purpose of doing sales but giving accurate information not to mislead the customers are the responsible of the provider.

HOW TO USE CHAT SUPPORT

Most of the ebusiness companies now have window section for live chat support. They provide few snippets information, along with a button, to their pages in which the customer may have the chance to browse it. If the customer will click on a button then it will alert the live chat server, hosted by the service that a visitor is popping up and wants to talk to the available chat support agent. In this highly regulated outsourcing industry, everything is compact and the information is stored ready to give a quick response to the visitors. And at the end, this visitor will enable to learn about the services and possibly turned out to be an up sell.

No wonder that in the next following years, live chat support services will give the outsourcing a remarkable journey in the online marketing scheme.*

New Culture Develops in the Philippine Call Centers

By Roberto L Bacasong
Company Writer
Unique Interaction Philippines


IN A DAZZLING city of Manila, the capital of the Philippines is described to be as busy as as an anthill, thousands of call center agents are trooping to their respective workplaces not minding the bad weather condition due to rainy season and tropical cyclone that is commonly a normal event in the country's geographic condition. When the clock strikes from 8 pm until wee hours is officially the starts of the day for the Filipino customer service representatives. This is the scene which you will observe in the Philippines brought about by the fast growing outsourcing industry occupying the gleaming towers in metro Manila. Largest call center operators also brought development and new culture to the Filipino agents in a way of uplifting their lives and be fitted in a fast-paced environment like of this one.

These workers are dealing with clients from all walks of life in which some were using pseudonym American names, donning with their headsets and placed phone calls to their clients as far as from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia in promoting products like Timeshare travel, collecting billings, credit cards, among others. Even on special holidays, call agents workers are required to appear on their schedule on time since their holidays are based in the US.

This is another culture which practiced in the outsourcing industry. For instance, there were numbers legal and non-legal holidays celebrated in this country, but if you work in a call center, there's no break because you are dealing with 24/7 US office operations. Of course, the compensation is much different compared to the other field of professions. Even though you are required to render overtime or during holidays, everything is paid off, according to Florena V. Abanilla, a call center agent of Unique Interaction.

“It is hard at first but the continuous learning process I acquired from the training gives me the opportunity to improve my communication skills. Working in a highly regulated company is enjoyable,” the 30-year-old live chat support agent opined.

Ms. Abanilla disclosed that since the job requires a night shift schedule, she left her house in Bulacan, a province in the Northern Luzon at 5 pm in order for her to be at the office before her shift starts at 8 pm until 4 am.

“We are like nocturnal animals because we are awake in the evening and definitely sleeping in the morning. I am used to it and I am very happy with my job,” she said.

The former works previously as an area managers secretary at Prudential Life Plans Inc. for four years but quit her job and changed her career path to call center. She also narrated that she was chosen as the “best agent” wherein she was awarded the newest model Nokia cellphone.

The Philippines is considered to be one of the multi-cultural country in Asia. Its chronicle reflects the complexity of every Filipino because of its rich in cultural background, which is widely known in the world. The fragmented structure of the country because of its divided provinces in terms of island to island is also unique in some other countries. The country is also logging its best practices in terms of information technology which boost the country's economy. Not only the country is known for its sweet hospitality in treating their visitors, customer service is also a way of showing the Filipino values in a telephony technology.

PHONE ATTITUDE

The outstanding call center management expertise of the Filipino agents have been recognized in the call center phenomenon. Showing concerns and putting ones shoes to another is a way of emphatizing the customers. Filipinos are carried away with their emotions especially if the customers are affected with the poor service they got from the package they purchased. If the worst scenario came, American customers showed uncomfortable by being irate and angry if still the concerns were not addressed thoroughly. This is something what makes Filipino proud because of their patients and flexibility many customers were happy on how they assist help to the customers' concern. In a call center in the Philippines, the agents were trained the value of dealing all types of customers. The call center companies informed them that the customers are not angry with them, instead to the program they got. No matter the rudeness they showed, Filipinos still do their best to maintain the smooth conversation with them.

The trend of outsourcing is remarkable in the country because it now part of the government drive to maintain this industry. Every call center locators offered a world class facilities which makes their agents and employees feel the ambiance like that in their respective homes. The culture of working in a call center is inevitable. Many benefits also shared by 24-hour convenience stores circulated outside the skyscrapers offering different kinds of services. Young and older call center agents like hanging the finest resto and coffee shops spending their breaks together with other agents from different companies.

BROUGHT WEALTH

Call center brought wealth to the Philippines because of its tremendous success for a decade of its presence to the country. This was proved by the national government because they huge amount of revenues aside from the share being delivered continuously by the overseas Filipino workers (OFW). The world class facilities make the workers proud to work in an owned American company. This is only part of a burgeoning industry known as business process outsourcing (BPO) in which call centers is part of. The application of a Western management is delectable way because workers complies the US standards. Learning the American speech music is very interesting in dealing with clients. This cultural trend strengthen the relationship between the Philippines and the US in continue to provide hope for every Filipino from poverty. The good thing, most contact centers offer attractive pacemaker in terms of benefits to their employees. World class facilities like spa and fitness gym, gaming area, sleeping quarters and freebies are some of the rewards which make their workers stay on their company. The agents also enjoy the getaway vacation award they received and discounts to movie houses and malls. Filipinos are also known for its multi-lingual skills aside from English, they can speak Spanish, Australian and British accent and others.

This culture will continue to grow in the next following years because of the excessive performance in the outsourcing industry. The Philippine government still believes that they achieve their goals by collaborating with other investors and convince them to forge deal with them.*

Philippine Outsourcing the Ideal in the World

By Roberto L. Bacasong
Company Writer
Unique Interaction Philippines

HOW can we say that the Philippine outsourcing is ideal in the world? There are so many reasons why the Philippines is considered. This industry is truly amazing because the way it help the Filipino workers in terms of contribution to the large scale of development for the country. Working in a call center in the Philippines is worthy enough in helping the Filipino families boost up their morale and the level of their competent in terms of adopting English language.

Beyond expectation, contact center is widely known today in the Philippines. It is a word of mouth which now became a common trend setting for yuppie Filipinos strongly agreeing that there’s better future on working in call center. For instance, once they have graduated from their respective bachelor’s degree thousands of them employed easily to different world class contact centers in the country. It is with great knowledge that call center companies offer great package such as salary scheme and benefits which attract Filipinos workers grabbing the opportunity with no doubt. Despite the high attrition rate in this industry, looking for staffing and manpower services have never been a problem to the call center locators in the Philippines. Most of them, received volumes of applicants everyday in which the shortlisted applicants were thoroughly screened upon reaching the job offer. The ratio goes this way, only three out of ten successful applicants qualified were mployed in the call center arena. But this does not mean that the level of competency is affected, this only reflect how the human resources team of hundreds of call center companies in the Philippines doing stiff hiring process to fill in their vacant position.

Outsourcing in the Philippines is very ideal in the world, as what most commented by some international call center owners published nationally and internationally in different medium especially in the newspapers. In Asia, along with the Philippines that is known for outsourcing are India, China, Thailand, among others. With strong command in English is a great advantage among other competitors. The country has huge number of graduates from reputable colleges and universities which is also a factor to consider.

In a research entitled: “Outsourcing to the Philippines: Metro Manila and Beyond” by neoIT highlighted some economic activity which contributed by this industry. The report noted that Metro Manila is considered as the most popular destination for outsourcing. This is because that Manila has a large skilled resource based that assures smooth operation scale-ups. The city houses 81 institutions of higher education and 1,600 other schools, boast a literacy rate of 92.4, and is home to institutions such as the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University, the University of the Philippines and the University of Santo Tomas. But not only this, the research further showed that not only Manila is the focus of call centers, it is also incubating other provinces such as Pampanga, Bacolod, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro. It further revealed that as an offshore outsourcing enters its next phase of evolution, the competitiveness of offshore nations will rest on their ability to develop multiple centers of excellence within their boarders – centers that satisfy the skill requirements, delivery capabilities,and risk appetite of outsourcing organizations.

Outsourcing continue to gather crowd of interest in the country. It opened opportunities to the Filipinos and combat the war against unemployment which is one of the major problems of the Philippine Government. The increasing demand in this industry has been given attention by the national government in order to attract other investors to stay in the country. It is no doubt that truly the Philippines is not only the land for its bountiful rich in tourism but also the home for the growing outsourcing industry.*

Outsourcing the First Choice for Career Shifters in the Philippines

By Roberto L Bacasong
Company Writer
Unique Interaction Philippines

For Filipinos who wants to earn high paying jobs found their home in vibrant outsourcing industry. This is because any contact centers in the Philippines offer attractive package and benefits which awaken the interest of the Filipinos to be part in this booming sunshine industry.

Career shifters from different fields of professions enrolled themselves in the call center industry because of the higher chances to be promoted and most importantly the benefits they will receive, which is far different from their previous employers. There are so many reasons behind on the continuing increase of Filipino workers changing their jobs to the outsourcing business. Frustrations from their previous employers is one of the many reasons why there are so many career shifters in the Philippines. They found new home in the business process outsourcing (BPO) with variety of fields include call centers, medical transcription, animation, litigation support, back-office operation or shared services and software development. It appeared that cyberservices now employs 250,000 workers and generates millions of pesos to the revenue of the country.

If you are articulate in English even if you did not finish your college degree, call centers have opened doors for career shifters, as well as to some people who previously could not find jobs. The good thing in working in a call center is that it caters without age limit. Despite the high attrition rate in working in contact centers many in the call center executives believe that staffing is not the problem. Everyday almost an average of 100 applicants or more than this were applying in call center companies. The advantage of the industry is that the recruitment process takes only 24 hours and once the applicants passed, they will then proceed to the contract signing. After the contract signing they are scheduled for a month-long training before they will allowed to take calls.

The Philippine Government is expecting the total number of BPO workers to reach the target by 2010. In a research conducted by one of the national daily newspapers in the Philippines since June 2006, about 27 percent of the 199,000 job advertisements from June to December 2006 were for cyberservices. The survey was based on the job advertisement monitored to the three national daily newspapers and three jobs online companies. It appeared that in terms of ranking, cyberservices occupy the top spot, followed by construction and engineering; manufacturing; wholesale and retail; hotels, resorts and restaurants; media and entertainment; transportation, storage and communication; financial intermediation; health and social work; and advertising and promotions. Consistently, job ads from the cyberservices sector have been growing at double-digit rates from its base in June in the last five months, an indication of the growth in job creation in the sector.

The education sector in the Philippines produce about 400,000 graduates every year which is higher compared to the other Asian countries. For the industry to grow into a million workers by 2010, the industry needs to recruit an average of 200,000 additional workers each year, a figure some industry experts say is probably not achievable. Even if the industry achieves half that target, recruiting about 100,000 new workers each year for the industry would mean that a significant number will have to come from career shifters. To achieve this goal, many call center and BPO companies designed specific programs for their employees to stay on the business. These graduates produce every year can speak English and have fair level of competency to be employed easily in a call center in the Philippines.

For instance, Beau Rudd, chief executive officer of Unique Interaction, disclosed that most of his employees in the inbound and outbound call centers and live support chat are career shifters. Mr. Rudd said that they welcome the fresh graduates to apply for the position and applicants who have experience in the call centers are advantage.

“Our goal is to provide unique solutions to our business associates. We value our clients and providing proper training to the agents should be given top priority,” Mr. Rudd said. So far, there is no statistics on the number of career shifters in outsourcing. But it is no doubt that in the Philippine call center arena, it continue to grow.

Among of the basic reasons why career shifters continue to expand because the agents learned new things in American way and they were able to financially help their respective families. Some considered the environment as progressive and organizational structure is rather flat, which provides doors of opportunities. Moreover, an employee doesn’t need to wait for an official appointment to get promoted. He/she can apply for the post aspired for. Many of the managers are young, and have equally progressive management style. They encourage direct interactions with subordinates. The company’s work ethic for managers requires them to provide support to their subordinates. Also, the work environment is fun and informal, while remaining professional in terms of delivering results.

EFFECTS

The survey further revealed that its effect on other firms will probably have a limited effect. It noted that those who shift are those with technical skills for specialized accounts and are paid very well. In addition, the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) expects on achieving the country’s job targets in the cyberservices industry. CICT believes that more than 40,000 career shifters are going this industry from 2006 until 2010. CICT also expects career shifters to make up 30 percent of new employees in the medical transcription business from 2006 to 2010.*

Philippine Call Center Stable

By Roberto L Bacasong
Company Writer
Unique Interaction Philippines

THE Call centers industry in the Philippines is stable according to the State of the Nation Address (Sona) of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last July 2007. Mrs. Arroyo, clad in a red terno expressed the significant on how call center industry is helping the country in terms of providing jobs to the Filipino people especially to the fresh graduates. This industry is distinct from information technology (IT) outsourcing, which focuses on hiring a third-party company or service provider to do IT-related activities, such as application management and application development, data center operations, or testing and quality assurance.

Mrs. Arroyo is taking cognizance of the importance of call center industry because of the ability of the Filipinos to speak fluently in English. She even said in her speech: “The Philippines ranks among top off-shoring hubs in the world because of cost competitiveness and more importantly our highly trainable, English proficient, IT-enabled management and manpower”

It only shows that call center industry in the Philippines has been called the “New India” as the country offers an abundance of inexpensive, English speaking labor. This was according to the 2003 Philippines Call Centre Industry Benchmark Study conducted by call centres net. Our country is very viable alternative to other locations in the Asia Pacific and hence many local and multinational organizations have set up contact centers. This trend is set to continue as numerous companies progressively seek an Asian presence to service customers both regionally and globally.

“Information technology will help the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) bring in more taxes in the coming months,” she stressed.

It means to say that more investments are likely to happen in the following years because of the presence of this industry. The country has approximately 200 call centers and 20,000 seats. It is estimated that 80% of these seats are operated by call center outsourcing bureaus.

She further said: “While our strength in contact centers is well-established, we are now focused on growing the higher value-added services, including accounting, legal, human resources and administrative services.”

She stressed: “The business services sector has become the fastest growing in the economy providing 400,000 jobs compared to 8,000 in 2000. By 2010 the forecast is one million jobs earning $12 billion, the same amount remitted by our overseas Filipinos today.”

If the government will unite and continue to promote the country as an investor-friendly in Asia many foreign multinational firms will choose Philippines to put up their contact centers here. The political bickering will not help the country in stabilizing the economy. If political noise continue to exist especially most of the newly elect senators and solons are from the opposition parties. Let’s hope and pray that the last election should serve as lesson to the entire nation.

Many factors should be prioritized if the government is serious in keeping this industry. First, is to focus on education. Knowledge is the greatest creator of wealth. Without knowledge we cannot move on and do the things we want. With this development, the President said that the nation is investing more for education: PhP150 billion, PhP29 billion more than last year. In 2006, the government and private sector built 15,000 classrooms instead of the usual 6,000. Since call center industry wants their employees to be computer literate. The government reported that one third of the public high schools now have Internet access, with private sector support.

The President quoted in her speech: “We have a scarcity of public high schools but a surplus of private high schools. So instead of building more high schools, we give more high school scholarships - 600,000 scholars this year.”

Aside from education, terrorism should be the top priority because it will scare the investors on putting their businesses in the country. The President herself is aware of the presence of the terrorists, which threatens the sovereign, democratic, compassionate and decent way of life. “Therefore, in the fight against lawless violence, we must uphold these values. It is never right and always wrong to fight terror with terro.”

I welcome the development that Human Security Act, a new anti-terror law that took effect last July 15, underscored the resolve to deal with terrorism and contribute to regional security. Due to the continuous conflict between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the More Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao, it is a good thing that she asked the Congress to enact laws to transform state response to political violence: First, laws to protect witnesses from lawbreakers and law enforcers. Second, laws to guarantee swift justice from more empowered special courts. Third, laws to impose harsher penalties for political killings. Fourth, laws reserving the harshest penalties for the rogue elements in the uniformed services who betray public trust and bring shame to the greater number of their colleagues who are patriotic.

“It is my ardent wish that most of the vision I have outlined will be fully achieved when I step down. It is my unshakeable resolve that the fundamentals of this vision will by then be permanently rooted, its progress well advanced and its direction firmly fixed with our reforms already bearing fruit. All that will remain for my successor is to gather the harvest. He or she will have an easier time of it than I did.”

No matter what happen, the Philippine call centers will continue to be part of Mrs. Arroyo's strong republic campaign. The Sona lasted 56 minutes to deliver and was interrupted by 102 rounds of applause, including the standing ovation at the end.*