Call center is a central customer service operation where agents, often called customer care specialists or customer service representatives, handle telephone calls in behalf of a client. Clients usually include mail-order catalog houses, telemarketing companies, computer products help desks, banks, financial services, insurance groups, transportation and freight handling firms, hotels and IT companies.
The call center serves as a telemarketing venue where the products and services of a particular company are being promoted to the clients. Through these centers, queries of company clients are being handled by the call center agents. Solutions to problems and customer complaints on certain products and services also find solutions through the call centers.
The size of call center operations is described and classified in terms of the number of “seats”. A “seat” consists fo a station with two or three people alternating in several shifts to provide 24-hour call center service.
The Philippines as Call Center Hub
The DTI noted that the country is now fast emerging as the call center capital of the world, offering 24×7 multilingual and multi-media supported premium services for marketing, sales, customer care, crisis management, investor relations and other key business applications.
Analysts agree that a lot of factors contributed to the industry’s sizzling development pace. One is the rising cost of doing business in indusrialized countries like the United States. This is forcing foreign companies to downsize and outsource peripheral e-services to developing countries like the Philippines to cut on overhead costs.
Other factors cited include better power and telecommunications infrastructure, competitive labor costs in terms of quality and value for money, and strong government support for ICT-related industries. Of course, the availability of skilled labor is the country’s acknowledged ace. Filipinos are renowned worldwide for English proficiency, high IT literacy, trainability, natural warmth and customer care orientation that are vital in the call center operations. The Filipinos strong affinity to the Western culture and events also proved advantageous.
In a study conducted by research firm Frost and Sullivan, it reveals that last year, the Philippine call center industry spent US$9.8M in terms of hardware and software. The country ranks ninth in the Asian region, following India at US$21M and Singapore at US$20.3M. It is expected that the Philippines would be spending more in the next few years.
Industry Prospects
The call center industry has been dubbed as the country’s latest sunshine industry. It is expected to generate around 24,000 jobs in teh next two years. Even as the country feels the fallout from the global IT crunch, it has benefited from the prevailing cost-cutting trend in an unprecedented way. This contributes largely in the tremendous boom in the call center business.
From 2000 to 2001, the industry segment reportedly grew by more than 200 percent, and local call center revenues are projected to increase from US$173M to US$864M in 2004.
Optimism runs high as Mc Kinsey and Co., an international research group, forecasts the growth of ICT-enabled services to a US$200B industry by the year 2010 with the call center segment’s share placed at a whooping US$42B.
Reports would also show that in the United States alone, there are around 1.5 million call center seats that could be outsourced. Industry data would point that so far the Philippines has less than 10,000 seats filled, indicating the domestic industry’s huge potential.
Aside from the US, main target markets for the call center industry also include Australia and the United Kingdom.
source: TESDA
The call center serves as a telemarketing venue where the products and services of a particular company are being promoted to the clients. Through these centers, queries of company clients are being handled by the call center agents. Solutions to problems and customer complaints on certain products and services also find solutions through the call centers.
The size of call center operations is described and classified in terms of the number of “seats”. A “seat” consists fo a station with two or three people alternating in several shifts to provide 24-hour call center service.
The Philippines as Call Center Hub
The DTI noted that the country is now fast emerging as the call center capital of the world, offering 24×7 multilingual and multi-media supported premium services for marketing, sales, customer care, crisis management, investor relations and other key business applications.
Analysts agree that a lot of factors contributed to the industry’s sizzling development pace. One is the rising cost of doing business in indusrialized countries like the United States. This is forcing foreign companies to downsize and outsource peripheral e-services to developing countries like the Philippines to cut on overhead costs.
Other factors cited include better power and telecommunications infrastructure, competitive labor costs in terms of quality and value for money, and strong government support for ICT-related industries. Of course, the availability of skilled labor is the country’s acknowledged ace. Filipinos are renowned worldwide for English proficiency, high IT literacy, trainability, natural warmth and customer care orientation that are vital in the call center operations. The Filipinos strong affinity to the Western culture and events also proved advantageous.
In a study conducted by research firm Frost and Sullivan, it reveals that last year, the Philippine call center industry spent US$9.8M in terms of hardware and software. The country ranks ninth in the Asian region, following India at US$21M and Singapore at US$20.3M. It is expected that the Philippines would be spending more in the next few years.
Industry Prospects
The call center industry has been dubbed as the country’s latest sunshine industry. It is expected to generate around 24,000 jobs in teh next two years. Even as the country feels the fallout from the global IT crunch, it has benefited from the prevailing cost-cutting trend in an unprecedented way. This contributes largely in the tremendous boom in the call center business.
From 2000 to 2001, the industry segment reportedly grew by more than 200 percent, and local call center revenues are projected to increase from US$173M to US$864M in 2004.
Optimism runs high as Mc Kinsey and Co., an international research group, forecasts the growth of ICT-enabled services to a US$200B industry by the year 2010 with the call center segment’s share placed at a whooping US$42B.
Reports would also show that in the United States alone, there are around 1.5 million call center seats that could be outsourced. Industry data would point that so far the Philippines has less than 10,000 seats filled, indicating the domestic industry’s huge potential.
Aside from the US, main target markets for the call center industry also include Australia and the United Kingdom.
source: TESDA
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