At Your Service

The boom in information technology has made life easier for many. But not for everyone. In fact, it seems that as technology becomes more and more advanced, the need for people to explain and make things simpler is becoming greater. That is why the business of customer service is growing. Customers buy all sorts of products or pay for services they don’t always completely understand. And when a problem occurs, they yank at, curse or kick the product and vow never to buy anything again from the company that made it.

Big problem? You bet, especially if you’re the one on the receiving end of the tirade. So what do you do? Hire someone to talk to and appease the customer while you do your best to improve your product or your service.

In the Philippines, a number of establishments have sprouted in recent years offering customer service to companies here and abroad. One of these establishments, Etelecare International, is a joint venture of local technology company SPI and an American customer service firm. It receives complaints and queries from customers living on the other side of the planet.

Benedict Hernandez, Etelecare’s general manager and the company’s highest-ranking Filipino employee, says customer service is poised to grow by leaps and bounds in the next three years.

"In the the last 12 months alone, about 20 out-sourced contact centers have mushroomed in the Philippines, most of which are gearing up to handle international clients," he said. "The US and other markets have started to seriously look at the Philippines as a base for their customer contact operations because our people are highly educated and have excellent communication and problem-solving skills."

Etelecare began operation last year and now has more than 600 employees working 24 hours a day, seven days a week at its 3,300-square-meter office at the top two floors of the Citibank Tower in Eastwood Cyberpark in Quezon City.

Its employees come from the top five percent of the country’s college graduates for the year, who speak English fluently and are naturally caring. Hernandez says, however, that they often get only one to two percent of the thousands of people who apply for work.

"Customer service is not for everyone," he says. "Our employees go through rigorous screening and testing and we get only the best."

Hernandez, 31, says he never had an inkling that he would someday specialize in customer service. He planned on becoming a dentist, but changed his mind when he began working for Speechpower during his first summer in college. There he honed his communication skills by answering phones and entertaining guests.

"I discovered that I wanted to teach," he recalled. He switched from dentistry to psychology at the University of the Philippines. He finished the course and taught for three years. While teaching, he was engaged by a former professor in consultancy work for Smart Communications, doing customer research. It proved to be his biggest break. He was soon employed by Smart as customer service supervisor, was quickly promoted to senior supervisor then to customer service manager.

Since the telecommunications industry was expanding fast, Hernandez saw his career grow at an unusually fast pace, too. When Nextel Communications was established, it looked for a customer service specialist and found him. The company got Hernandez as head of its customer care department, then after six months made him a director and soon thereafter promoted him to vice president.

"I was not actively seeking promotions," he says, adding that in all of his jobs, he’s been the youngest. "The companies and industries I have joined happened to be growing quickly and I had the opportunity to grow with them."

At Etelecare, Hernandez oversees the operations of the Libis call center and sees to it that the best people are hired, trained, retained and rewarded. "It’s hard to find the best people, and it’s even harder to retain them," he said.

His people are tasked to handle the needs of US-based customers. They answer phones cheerfully, expressing a desire to help. Some of the calls can be irritating, however, especially if they involve irate customers who curse and insult the person on the other line.

"Helping customers is a challenging job," Hernandez says. "You have to possess the right communication skills, you have to know how to solve problems and you have to be prepared to handle even the emotional cares of customers."

To help his people maintain balance, Hernandez makes it a point that the work at Etelecare is always fun and rewarding. For one, he makes sure the salary of every employee is above industry standards. He has formed a team whose only job is to think of office "gimmicks" for the mostly young workers. And he ensures that systems are in place so that high-performers get promotions and bonuses.

Recently, Etelecare did something never before done in any business. The company invited the parents of employees to the office one Saturday and gave them a glimpse of Etelecare’s operations.

"I was surprised that so many parents came for the event. They were all seriously interested in finding out what their family members did at work. And the meeting proved profitable to them and to us since they understood the work of their children better," he said.

Hernandez is now working on Etelecare’s second customer service call center which he expects to start operation in the next couple of months. He is also talking with other executives in the industry and people in the academe on the possibility of introducing customer service as a special course in college.

"This industry will definitely continue to grow and it will continue to have a need for highly qualified professionals. It’s never too early to develop people for a promising and challenging career in customer service," he says.