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Philippines Call Centers Overtake India
New submitter ajitk writes "This year, call centers in the Philippines employed 50,000 more people than those in India. From the New York Times article: 'More Filipinos — about 400,000 — than Indians now spend their nights talking to mostly American consumers, industry officials said, as companies like AT&T, JPMorgan Chase and Expedia have hired call centers here, or built their own. ... Nevertheless, the financial benefits of outsourcing remain strong enough that the call center business is growing at 25 to 30 percent a year here in the Philippines, compared to 10 to 15 percent in India. In spite of its recent growth, the Philippines is a much smaller destination for outsourcing more broadly — India earns about 10 times as much revenue from outsourcing.'"
I'm not sure how extensive they are or if TFA takes this into account, but it should be noted that all the Indian BPO majors have a presence in the Philippines.
First off, I never thought I'd see the day that my country and my industry would make it to slashdot's front page. :-)
I work in one of the biggest call centers in Manila as part of upper management (hence, this anonymous post). The growth here in the Philippines (of the call center industry) has been astonishing. For my span (total number of employees in my or my subordinates' control) alone, we grew by 1500% in 2 years. This year, projected revenue from outsourcing in the Philippines is projected at around a dozen billion US dollars.
The article is correct in stating that a typical Filipino will learn American English in first grade (pre-school, in most cases) and that he/she would probably have been indoctrinated in American culture as soon as they first watch Sesame Street or Spongebob in their formative years.
(This can be both good and bad. For the past few weeks, everybody at work can speak about nothing else except Breaking Dawn. And, as a sidenote, nerds here in the Philippines are almost indistinguishable from their American counterparts, they speak the same language (Klingon, included) and pursue similar pursuits and hobbies outside work and school.)
I truly believe the key to this growth is not just language and cultural indoctrination, as what TFA has stated.
First is the inherent culture and attitude. Typically, a Filipino will be extremely polite and accommodating almost to a fault. One of our recurring issues here are call center agents who keep saying "Sir" and "Ma'am" too much and apologize profusely, more so than is warranted. Compare this (and I say this with all due respect) to counterparts in other countries where call center agents have to be reminded to say "Thank you" every now and then. Another would be qualifications. Most Filipinos in the call center industry have, at the very least, a college degree. Finally, the most compelling characteristic, imho, is definitely the work ethic. It is not uncommon for my colleagues to work 12 hour days (without overtime pay) and still commute 2 hours to and from work. Add to that, call center employees, more often than not, work from 9pm to 5am to match US daylight hours. All this for a fraction of what our counterparts get in the west.
I am quite optimistic that our industry will continue to grow, even with if there is a clamor for jobs to stay Stateside and recent technologies such as Siri. There will always be a need for a human touch when a person picks up the telephone to ask for help. And, even if I am wont to say this, Filipinos are suited for this job, as their counterparts in the west don't seem to want it, or have a disdain for it.