Best Philippine Call Centers

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is one of the outsourcing sectors in the Philippines which is considered to be one of the most successful in terms of growth. The financial difficulties experienced by our outsourcing clients like Australian, US, British and Canadian law firms are factors that contribute to the growth of LPO industry in the country.
According to Evalueserve, overhead expenses that need to be reduced include IT, accounting, marketing, legal and clerical knowledge management. These overhead expenses alone cover 17% of the overall company’s expenses. With LPO being outsourced, these costs are reduced up to approximately 7%. This is the main factor that contributes to the spur growth of LPO industry in the Philippines.

Citing global economic meltdown and other recession related crisis, an annual growth of 200% can be expected from the LPO industry alone. In the first quarter of 2010, the global LPO industry was able to employ more than five thousand experts within India and Philippines. With these numbers, the legal offshoring and outsourcing services are expected to employ more than nineteen thousand (19,000) professionals by December 2015. This increase in employment in legal outsourcing will also post annual revenue of $960 million.

During the same year, the LPO industry grew by 40-60%. According to Amanda Carpo from Kittelson & Carpo Consulting, the biggest advantage of legal process outsourcing is that it is extremely efficient and cost-effective for clients reducing their overall production cost. For example, a U.S. attorney will typically charge $150-600/hour for legal services, while there is a good part of the work which can be outsourced to legal process outsourcing firms outside the country which will cost just a fraction of the original cost charge by the U.S. attorney, thus, provides value to the client.

“Apart from that, legal process outsourcing (LPO) firms sometimes have a faster turnaround time processing legal documentation, because they specialize in this. Private law firms and the legal departments of businesses simply lack the time, infrastructure, and technology to efficiently manage this procedure,” Carpo added.

Dex One, Yellow Pages’ publisher, will be outsourcing a huge chunk of its graphic works to the Philippines. This is good news for the world’s leading call center hub, as the country tries to intensify its efforts to also become one of the world’s major graphics and IT outsourced countries.

This move by Dex One, however, meant that layoffs of its graphic workers responsible for the visual content of the digital and print ads had to be made. The news of the layoffs was announced last year, according to Dex spokesman Tyler Gronbach.

Gronbach added that “the vast majority of the jobs are going to the Philippines, but there will be management that oversees those functions still based in the US.”
Dex One’s decision to outsource to the Philippines is part of its efforts to reach its aim of reducing its expenses this year by $100 million.

Dex One is a marketing services company in the U.S. providing print yellow pages directories, online and mobile search solutions, pay-per-click ad networks, and voice based search platforms.

In light of global economic downturn, Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM) reported that the trends in business outsourcing reflected a movement up the value curve towards knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) wherein it involves more complex business functions.

Other than the sought-after voice-based jobs for BPO industries, KPO jobs are becoming more and more popular. Majority of the KPO industry firms in the Philippines have increased their employment quota from eleven (11) percent to two hundred (200) percent from 2009 to follow the robust growth of BPO industries.

According to a survey conducted by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) and Outsource2Philippines (O2P), various KPO services are offered by different BPO firms as well. Most industries are offering different KPO services from small to large enterprises and deliver a broad range of complex work. Tight market of qualified workers, inability of some workers to retain complicated knowledge, complex training requirements, inadequate educational infrastructure, and high wages are the factors that threaten the future growth of the industry.

Despite these threats, KPO services which focus on market research are catching up in the local BPO industry. Future prospects of the KPO industry will still depend on the work quality of currently employed “knowledge workers”. These workers are currently delivering outstanding services wherein they get their clients to trust them in making important decisions for their behalf. The type of KPO services being offered in the country varies widely from advertising to web services up to financial and legal KPO.

Business analysts are optimistic about the growth of the knowledge outsourcing industry. North America, with 59% market for KPO services is currently the largest provider for the industry followed by Asia with 46%. With the Philippines being successful in BPO business, there is no doubt that it can conquer the KPO industry in the future.

The Philippines overtaking India in the BPO industry race has been a legendary milestone for the country. Outsourcing business has been a beneficial solution for both participating countries during the global recession. Despite the economic meltdown, the Philippines was able to maintain its competitiveness against other countries which is evidence that it will maintain its resilience amidst the upcoming economic crisis.

The Philippines’ BPO industry has been growing at approximately 45% a year. With the emergence of different outsourcing companies in the country, the revenue growth for call centers alone is expected to boom up to a minimum of 50% annually, according to PHILEXPORT trustee for the Information Technology industry.

The Association of Call Center Agents of the Philippines (ACCAP) has been formed to address issues regarding call center companies and help maintain the quality of work while doing efficient changes in the nature of BPO.

Robust 20-30 percent growth for non-voice sector is also expected while the contact center sector continues to contribute in the overall growth of the BPO industry. The country’s competitiveness will remain stable and will improve with the right aggressive training and recruitment of development programs.

Today, many voice and non-voice sectors in the Philippines offer extensive training to successful applicants while maintaining a work efficient environment. In the future, the Philippines can expect to move forward into leading both voice and non-voice sector of the BPO industry.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firm Accenture is set to generate another 5,000 Jobs in the Philippines this year as the company adds more clients from various parts of the world to its impressive roster.

According to the BPO giant, their expansion reflects the country’s outsourcing industry outlook for the year and its goal of a 2-digit growth.

“Right now, we have more than 20,000 employees in the Philippines. Last year was a very good year for us,” Accenture Philippines BPO operations head Benedict Hernandez said in an interview.

“We should be up to 25,000 before the end of the year,” he said. Last year alone, he said the company was able to bring about 4,000 new jobs, making it one of the country’s biggest BPO firms.

An estimated 50 percent of the company’s employees in the Philippines does technology consulting, while the other 50 percent is engaged in sub-contracted services which include call-center work, accounting, healthcare and finance.

According to Hernandez, compared to other big BPO companies in the Philippines, the lion’s share of Accenture’s workforce is not made up of call center agents.

“What’s good about us is 90 percent of our BPO portfolio is in higher-value, non-voice BPO operations,” he said.

At present, the number of the company’s call center agents total to only about 1,000.

“If you look at other significant players in the Philippines, they do mostly call-center work. Our advantage is that we have the capability to grow in other professions,” he said.

Hernandez said that this model could be “what a BPO company can become.”

Branching out from simple “voice” processes to higher-value work or Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) is, after all, the next step in BPO.

And this is exactly the direction stakeholders want the industry to take, a move up the value chain by bringing more focus to other services like animation, publishing and legal services.

The country’s BPO sector currently employs 600,000 people. By 2015, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines sees this number increase to about 1.3 million.

The industry has already become a trend globally, and today, Philippine Call Centers are proven to be one of the most globally competitive providers when it comes to manpower and services. The state of the art technology and dedicated agents contribute in achieving both company and customer satisfaction. Every firm sees to it that the business goals are met, guided with one edge that pushes it to success- professional lead generation solutions.

Lead generation is a helpful tool in the company and customer communication. It works through search engines, emails and telephones, but it serves well the dual purpose. Buyers, through their sign-up or inquiry form, can consider options with regards to the product they are looking for. This is an opportunity for companies, too, to endorse their products to willing inquirers.

Dealing with clients, however, can be very taxing on the companies’ part. Much more so if they solely handle both product development and marketing operations. Outsourcers come in this point, and the responsibility is handed upon them to speak on the company’s behalf. They are now the voice that could make or break the company in the business climate.

In choosing the right outsourcer, there come a lot of considerations. There are many claims that seem to make each firm stand out from the rest, but it is safe to check not only both of its human and technological resources (of how dedicated and advanced they are), but the link that binds them as well- the lead generation solutions. This would tell how competitive they are in the field.

Business process outsourcing firms in the Philippines like LWS Media Inc. guarantees high performance resources that ensure effective inbound and outbound Customer Services. We provide the best committed people to tend to your offshore needs and we’ll be your partner until your company thrives in its desired outcome.

Link building is considered as one of the most important and complicated task in search engine optimization or SEO. It is the trump card of every SEO technique or strategy. Its popularity will not be overlapped by any optimization technique that co-exists with it. But what exactly is link building? Can it stand alone as an SEO strategy?

Link building helps a lot in improving link popularity that is a significant factor used by search engines to rank different websites. The higher your page rank, the higher the possibility that many users will click on it. More visitors mean more sales. Link building is the process where you get other sites to link back to your website. High quality link backs can greatly affect your website’s ranking. This is also the same for poor quality links. Link backs or back links are always “spidered” by spiders and crawlers.
Search engines love links. These links determines the relevance and connection of your website to the search terms and make your website get indexed by search engines using keywords. Link building includes two kinds of links — one way and two-way links. One way links are links that point from one website to someone else’s website page. Two-way or reciprocal links are links made when webmasters or owners have agreed to exchange links with each other. The direct connection between one-way links makes it more valuable than two way links. Another ways of link building are using dynamic, text, URL and image links. Submitting links and articles to directories are also part of the link building process. A successful link building strategy can ensure high web traffic, ranking and popularity.

The importance of link building in search engine optimization or SEO will never be questioned. Link building is an important factor in improving page rank and optimization of search engines; however it cannot stand alone as an SEO technique because it is greatly dependent on other factors.

Markets have been plummeting, banks have been declaring bankruptcy, and millions of people have been losing their jobs due to the global financial crisis. Here in the Philippines however, the economy has not taken as much damage as its neighbors because of its strong Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. Companies big and small have come to consider the Philippines as a prime spot for offshore operations in the past few years due mainly to the fact that English is taught in many schools as a second language and that the cost of operations are smaller compared to those in other developed, English-speaking countries.

Thus it is no huge surprise when a recent survey of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) has announced that 23 BPO companies are still hiring new employees as call center agents and information-technology and administrative support personnel. According to the TUCP secretary-general, Ernesto Herrera, “A number of BPO providers are drafting additional staff on account of expansion, while others are requiring fill-in personnel due to attrition, or the loss of employees.”

Some contact centers that are looking for new personnel are:
LWS Media, Aegis PeopleSupport Inc. Affiliated Computer Services Inc. APAC Customer Services Inc. Convergys Philippines Services Corp. Dell International Services Philippines Inc. Deutsche Knowledge Services Pte. Ltd. eTelecare Global Solutions Inc. Hinduja TMT Ltd. HSBC Electronic Data Processing Philippines Inc. ICT Marketing Services Inc. JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. Philippine Customer Care Center NCO Group Inc. NuComm International Inc. PeopleTalk Contact Solutions Inc. Stellar Global Solutions Inc. Synnex-Concentrix Corp. Telephilippines Inc. TeleTech Holdings Inc. TELUS International Philippines Inc. VXI Global Solutions Inc. West Contact Services Inc. WinSource Solutions Inc.

For example, APAC is currently looking for 1,000 call center agents and support staff for their Manila offices as well as their new call center located in Tacloban City. Deutsche Knowledge Services on the other hand has been has been on the look-out for 900 people experienced in finance, business, and accounting to offer back office support to its global enterprises. ICT Marketing Services is now recruiting 400 agents for call centers in Manila and their newly-opened one in Cabanatuan City.

LWS Media, a local BPO company based in Ortigas with a satellite office in Hong Kong, is also currently looking for several new recruits. They need customer service representatives (for inbound and outbound accounts) and tech support representatives.
Many of these companies don’t require a full degree; anyone who has good English or foreign language skills is welcome to apply. It doesn’t matter if you’ve only had two (or even less) years in college, or even if you’re just a high school graduate. These companies are in dire need of new employees. They value skills and experience more than anything else.

According to the survey conducted by TUCP, call center companies place emphasis on those who has bilingual or multilingual skills. Major BPO companies such as PeopleSupport, Convergys, Synnex and Telephilippines are actively looking for full-time or part-time employees who can speak fluent French, Cantonese, Spanish, or Japanese.

Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP is a technology that makes it possible to make calls through Internet Protocol (IP) networks like the Internet or other computer networks. It goes by many names. IP telephony, Internet telephony, broadband telephony, broadband phone, voice over broadband (VoBB), digital phone service, cable phone service, and managed IP telephony are just some of them.

How VoIP works
VoIP allows communication services such as voice calls and/or messaging and facsimiles to be transmitted via the Internet instead of the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN). Basically, when you make a call, the analog signals created by your voice are converted to digital format then compressed and translated into IP packets and transported over the Internet. The whole process is then reversed upon reaching the receiving party as a voice call.

VoIP systems have built-in session control protocols to regulate the calls as well as audio codecs which convert voice to digital format for transportation over the Internet.

How to make VoIP calls
One can make VoIP calls using a land line, personal computer/ laptop, or cell phone as long as the equipment is connected to the Internet. There are applications that need to be installed in order to use VoIP such as Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live, Google Talk, AOL Messenger, and iChat, to name a few. Usually, such apps can be downloaded free online. VoIP calls are usually free if the call is made from a computer to another computer, but there is a minimal charge (definitely cheaper than local or long-distance calls) when calling a phone or cell phone number.

The impact of VoIP on the call center industry
The advent of VoIP technology has been a boon to the call center industry. Higher broadband speeds and more advanced Internet Protocol (IP) networks distributed to more areas around the globe allowed VoIP to become a cheap and convenient way to make and receive calls. Realizing its potential to reach out to more clients at a fraction of the cost, call centers has since then incorporated VoIP into their daily operations.

VoIP technology encouraged companies to increasingly outsource their call center services to other countries like the Philippines in their quest to reduce cost and increase profits. For one thing, it’s cheap to set up the necessary equipment to make voice calls – just broadband, a desktop, and a telephone and you’re all set. The actual cost to make an international call is also decreased. For example, this means that agents at a call center like LWS Media can service more clients from more locations for longer talk times.

Indeed, using VoIP in outsourcing business processes can help companies improve their services, widen their client base, and cut costs. In the very competitive call center industry, every innovation counts.

The call center industry is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the Philippines nowadays. According to a recent study commissioned by the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), this growth is expected to go on until the end of the year. The result of the study reveals a robust industry that gives no signs of slowing down inn spite of the country’s existing economic strain and low operational costs from global markets.

The steady growth of the Philippine call center industry is largely due to North American multinational companies who look to outsourcing a part of their business process to lower overhead and expenses. The Philippines has always been among the top choices of countries for BPO destination due to several reasons.

First among these reasons is the lowered cost of labor. A typical salary for a Filipino call center agent starts at Php14, 999.00 per month. This rate is about a fifth of what an agent receives in the United States or in other richer countries. In spite of this, Filipino call center agents are content with what they receive as this amount is relatively higher than what they receive in other jobs.

Most call center agents in the Philippines also do not mind the huge discrepancy of the working hours between the Philippines and North America. A large pool of workers are prepared to work at nights in order to match the waking and business hours of these companies that are based on the other side of the world. The country’s heightened unemployment rate is seen as a contributing factor to Filipino agent’s willingness to work at nights, as well as the higher incentive they could receive for accepting the task.

Yet the Philippines’ high unemployment rate is not at all a dismal glimpse of the country’s workforce. The Philippines is one of the world’s best English speaking and well-educated work force. This excellent proficiency in English makes the Philippines an in-demand BPO destination. The Philippines is one of the best English speaking countries in Asia. Most people have grown up speaking the language as it is encouraged by the government, the country’s educational system, the media, and the business sector.

The Philippines has a large well-educated and skilled work force. Most call center providers in the Philippines require their agents to have at least two years of college education aside from excellent communication skills. In addition, agents often take on their posts while already possessing a reliable degree of computer and web browsing prowess.

Hence, by outsourcing a company’s non-core operations to a well-educated, skilled, and efficient work force, the company can then focus on their main functions and onto their customers’ needs. This process also affords greater efficiency and productivity.

Of course, call center outsourcing in the Philippines is not without drawbacks. Unlike its competitors like India and China, the Philippines
Has a less developed IT and networking infrastructure. There is also the question of political instability that seems to have plagued the local scene in recent years.

The current government recognizes the integral part the BPO and call center industries play in the economy. Recent economic reforms have been implemented in order to provide robust support for the business sector. In addition, the growing stability of the Philippine peso is an encouraging sign that the country is on its way to recovering from its past economic and political instability.

Though only time could determine if the Philippines could prove itself as a strong and stable emergent economy in Asia, the benefits of outsourcing in the Philippines at present seems to outweigh the disadvantages. As it is the ultimate objective of any business venture to get more than what it has invested, the Philippine call center industry certainly offers more than what any company’s money is worth.