Philippine Call Center Services Companies Outsourcing

Companies around the world realize that the labor represents a substantial cost component in today’s service-focused economy. The proliferation of global outsourcing provides enterprises of all sizes and industries with an opportunity to obtain price and service quotations from numerous third party vendors that are offering customer care, acquisition and retention services through highly cost effective, geographically dispersed markets.

The Philippines, today, ranks as one the world’s leading and best known offshore outsourcing destination for English-speaking, voice-related call center services. With hundreds of competing service providers operating in the Philippines today foreign based service buyers often find it extremely time consuming and frustrating to identify qualified outsources that possess a proven, time tested track record.

Top Medium-sized Call Centers is a website dedicated to helping companies with the identification and evaluation of the Philippines' leading, mid-sized call center service providers . The website is owned and managed by a group of call center outsourcing experts that have worked with numerous, Philippine call centers over the last 10 years. The key objective of this website is provide foreign-based companies with a shortlist of highly qualified and experienced call centers. All featured companies possess a strong track record of service delivery excellence.

Historically, the industry’s growth has never faltered. Its annual average growth rate since 2006 has been impressive at 46 percent. Despite the US-led market meltdown in 2008, the industry earning still increased to $6.1 billion up from $4.5 billion the previous year. It was enough to make it the third largest BPO destination in the world, after India and Canada.

The year 2009, however, was even better for the BPO industry. From $0.02 billion in 2001 the country’s BPO industry, which is comprised mainly of Philippine call center companies, brought in $7.3 billion in 2009. Of that amount, $5 billion came from the call center industry. This is represents about 12% of the country’s Gross National Product.

What makes this feat even remarkable is that the Philippine call center industry posted positive earnings when most of the global economies were still reeling from the impact of the financial meltdown that sent the US into a deep recession. The industry grew by 25 percent while the overall Philippine economy managed less than 1 percent growth.

In the present year, Philippine call center service providers are already off to a great start. As the fading recession continues to give way to recovery Philippine call center companies are already expanding operations in anticipation of the surge of business growth in the United States and Europe. In February, the country cornered 72 percent of the 25,700 new BPO jobs in the world, according to a recruitment, and training outfit for Philippine call center agents.

The industry also expects to expand its market to other countries as more Australian firms are looking to outsource to the Philippines, according to Gillian Joyce Virata, executive director for information and research of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP). The banking sector was likewise increasingly considering the country as an outsourcing option, she added.

The emergence of the Philippine call center industry as a global powerhouse is largely attributed to the Filipinos’ high level of English proficiency. Philippine call center agents are not only fluent in American English but also have neutral accents. A neutral accent makes it easier for agents working in Philippine call center companies to interact with global customers whether they are from the US, Australia, New Zealand, or England.

The Filipino’s strong cultural affinity with the West, particularly the United States, has also contributed to the success of the Philippine call center industry. Since they are already very familiar with American popular culture and current events, Philippine call center agents have superior conversational skills over agents from other countries.

Philippine call center agents also have a reputation for delivering cost-efficient but high quality of outsourced work and live up to the strict performance metrics of international standards. Agents working in Philippine have garnered high ratings for their customer service, efficiency at work and courtesy. Furthermore, Philippine call centers are more popular among clients in the US, Canada and Europe than India.

Because of these qualities, many leading multinationals such as Caltex, Procter & Gamble, Barnes and Noble, among others, have tapped Philippine call center service providers for their customer service needs.
In addition, the support that the BPO industry has been receiving from the Philippine government has made the country even more competitive in the crowded marketplace. We need to maintain our supply of talent and focus on infrastructure, according to Ray Anthony Roxas Chua III, head of the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT). One of the biggest boosts to the BPO industry is the creation of the Cyber Corridor.

The Cyber Corridor is composed of key cities in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao identified by the private sector, the academe and government as the strongest potential locations for Philippine call center companies as well as back office, software development, medical transcription, engineering design, animation and game development outsourcing.

The corridor allows BPO players to move outside Metro Manila and Metro Cebu, the two original cities that served as the main locations for Philippine call center operations. Ten urban areas being promoted as new destinations for the Philippine call center industry include Metro Laguna, Metro Cavite, and Lipa City in Batangas, all located south of Metro Manila. Metro and Central Bulacan and Metro Pampanga, just north of the Philippine Capital, are also part of the Cyber Corridor.

Other cities that comprise the Cyber Corridor can be found in the Central and Southern regions of the archipelago. Joining Bacolod are IIoilo, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro as alternative sites for the expanding BPO industry