Call center industry firm on retaining No. 1 status

MANILA, Philippines - The call center industry of the Philippines is determined to keep its status as no. 1 in the world for voice calls, even as it strives to put key measures in place to also become no. 1 in the non-voice segment.

According to Call Center Association of the Philippines executive director Jojo Uligan, there is a need to revisit education in the Philippines to incorporate the ever-changing dynamics in the contact centers. At the same time, Uligan also says there is now a need to study other key languages to ensure continued growth in the world market.

In an interview with the newest online talk show called BPO Talks, Uligan says the types of calls the contact center agents receive now are vastly different from what they got more than a decade ago. “Twelve years ago we only handled basic calls, now our agents are answering more complex types, such as a client in the US asking how to fix their computers,” Uligan points out.

In the maiden episode of the online show BPO Talks, Uligan reiterates that the requirements of the customers are continuously growing, and there are now more requests from clients for agents to be proficient in other languages as well, apart from English. In the taped-as-live episode, Uligan says “because our global customers are so satisfied with the way we handle things in the Philippines, they now ask us, can you do this in other languages?”

For the foreign vendors’ part, they also emphasize the need for greater efficiency through the use of the right technology. Slava Varlamov, the country manager for the Noda Interaction Platforms says, “we are present in other countries, but we realize the Philippines is number one in the world in the BPO contact center industry not only because of their good English, but because they care about the customers.” But he stresses the need for higher efficiency, especially with the smaller and mid-sized contact centers due to the nature of the more complex-type of calls that contact center agents now deal with.

“Technology can help. As requirements become more complicated, technology has to provide the agent a single user interface that presents data from several applications, not only for call management systems, but also for billing systems and others. Enabled by these powerful tools an agent can simultaneously handle not only voice calls, but fax’ requests, instant messaging (Skype), emails, and other sources of customer communication.”

The same BPO Talks episode had DIWA Partylist Rep. Emmeline Aglipay as one of the guests, where she talks about the measure she filed in Congress, House Bill 562 or the BPO Workers Act. She explains that the bill aims to ensure the rights and protection of the BPO workers in the Philippines. In particular, she says her group is determined to ensure the agents’ security of tenure.