Is the Philippines the right location for your outsourced call center?
The Philippines is one of the most popular call center locations—known today as “the call center capital of the world”—and covers about 15% of the global outsourcing market. With over 1.4 million workers in the outsourcing industry in the Philippines, it’s clearly one of the biggest and most common markets for outsourcing of all kinds, from IT to call centers.
But is it the right location for your brand?
In this article, our team will walk you through eight reasons why you should consider using a call center in the Philippines. Recognize your needs in this list? Skip to the end of this article and we’ll show you how to get started.
#1: English Proficiency is High
Many companies assume that since the Philippines is an offshore location, the English proficiency levels are lower than other locations—however, this isn’t true!
In fact, Filipino agents have high English proficiency levels. In part, this is because of the growing outsourcing market. As demand grows, governmental and educational resources continue to grow and deepen alongside to support the blossoming labor market. In addition, the cultural compatibility of the Philippines with Western markets means that few Filipino agents speak with a discernible accent.
Cultural and linguistic compatibility reduces language and communication barriers, improving customer communications and experiences.
#2: Access a Large, Skilled and Educated Workforce
The Philippines, as mentioned above, is home to millions of workers specifically within the outsourcing industry. Whether you’re looking to outsource BPO, IT, customer service, marketing, or something else, the Philippines almost certainly has a wide labor market available to staff the services you need.
In addition, the high number of call centers and BPO outsourcing centers in the Philippines means that the Philippines place a strong emphasis on continuous training and development programs. There are so many opportunities for young workers in the Philippines to get training and education for careers in customer service or CX—which means that you get the advantage of highly skilled, educated workers for your call center team!
This large workforce also means you have more opportunities to access employees with diverse skill sets, including technical and domain expertise, legal or medical expertise, IT and application management skills and more.
All in all—a large workforce is great for scaling your customer service or BPO operations. But a highly skilled, diverse and educated workforce is even better. When you outsource to the Philippines, you get both.
#3: Improve Cost-Efficiency and Business Savings
Cost savings have always been a key driver behind decisions to outsource—as many as 59% of businesses say outsourcing is a cost-saving measure for them.
If cost-savings are essential for your business as well, the Philippines are a great outsourcing location. Due to favorable exchange rates between the Philippines and the US and the lower costs of living, labor and salaries—among other costs—are much more affordable in the Philippines. As such, businesses who outsource to the Philippines can take advantage of competitive labor costs, which can allow you much more flexibility and scalability compared to building a domestic or nearshore call center.
In addition, the Philippines offer additional cost savings without compromising the quality of service, as is common with other offshoring destinations. If you’re used to having to choose between quality and affordability, the Philippines are a great middle ground.
Since labor is much more affordable, the Philippines also offers more flexibility within the team, allowing you to scale your team quickly and affordably. If you want to build a remote or hybrid call center team to further reduce costs or improve flexibility, call centers in the Philippines—like our ROI CX Solutions Philippines call center—can help you build that. If you want to scale up your team quickly to manage a growing backlog or a sudden influx of customer communication, you can do that too. Need to scale back after the busy season is over to keep costs in check? A call center in the Philippines has both the staff and flexibility to accommodate your changing needs.
#4: Benefit from Cultural Alignment and Customer Service Orientation
One of the reasons why the Philippines are such a common outsourcing destination is because of the strong Western influence, which means many Filipino agents have shared cultural values and workforce norms.
While this isn’t necessarily a must for outsourcing, shared workplace values make working together easier, prompting faster and more effective communication and collaboration, stronger connections between teams, and ultimately making it easier to get things done. In addition, shared cultural values make it easier for agents to connect with your customers, increasing customer satisfaction.
Beyond that, the strong customer-focused orientation in the Philippines means that hospitality, politeness and a customer-centric mindset are much easier to find among Filipino agents and call centers compared to other locations. This allows you to provide superior customer service experiences for your audience—which of course has a myriad of benefits, from strengthening customer loyalty and satisfaction to improving profitability and more.
#5: Government Support Provides Strong Infrastructure
Since the BPO and outsourcing industry is such a large part of the Philippines’ labor market, there’s strong government backing, policies and infrastructure to support their market—and by extension, your BPO or call center.
Cebu and Manila are both global business hubs for local, regional and international business operations. Many call centers in the Philippines—including our ROI CX Solutions center—are based here, at the hub of international business and technology.
Being based here allows us to not only deliver a superior customer experience, but also a superior client experience with a business-friendly environment, a global outlook, and a well-developed IT and telecommunication infrastructure to support any of your outsourcing needs.
#6: Increased Scheduling Flexibility
With call center in the Philippines, you can more easily—and affordably—provide support that aligns with any time zones you choose, or even 24/7 support for superior customer service. Since the time zones in the Philippines are far from those in the US, it’s easier—and cheaper—to offer overnight support, either in addition to an in-house team or with a fully outsourced team.
With 24/7 support and increased scheduling flexibility in general, you’ll be able to reduce communication gaps and improve responsiveness. Improved responsiveness not only improves customer service and satisfaction, but it also improves and strengthens backend processes—for example, reducing backlogs and speeding up time to answer and FCR.
#7: Strong Ethical and Data Privacy Standards
With a growing international BPO sector, there’s a strong emphasis in the Philippines to commit to strong ethical and data privacy standards that meet international guidelines and regulations.
As such, the Filipino government has dedicated governmental departments, such as the Department of Information and Communication Technology, to provide policy and infrastructure support to the BPO industry and call centers. They also ensure local call centers are complying with international data privacy and data security standards, creating a strong regulatory framework to support your operations.
As a result, Philippines call centers have robust security measures to safeguard customer and business data. For example, in our ROI CX Solutions call center in Cebu, our expansive call center headquarters feature ID-access doors, ensuring safety and security for our building, as well as the latest in security, PCI-compliance and other data security certifications. We also provide secure and independent transportation for our employees, employee training and other workforce benefits that not only increase security and stability for our employees (and therefore, our clients), but also support strong ethical business development.
#8: Take Advantage of a Strong Track Record and Industry Expertise
With an established reputation as a leading global outsourcing destination, the Philippines have a proven track record of successful call centers and other outsourcing services. As such, when you outsource to the Philippines, you get to take advantage of a strong track record, not just from your individual call center, but from the country as a whole.
And when you work with an established partner like ROI CX Solutions, you get the benefit of established in-house expertise as well. Our team has decades of experience with call center services, customer service, marketing, QA processes, lead generation and more.
In addition, outsourcing to the Philippines gives you access to industry-specific expertise and knowledge—for both agents who are familiar with your industry, i.e. automotive or legal clients, and high-level expertise within customer service and customer experience. With access to more experienced agents and teams comes not only better customer experiences, but also stronger strategy, more efficient processes, and more profitability for your business.
