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Is your business growing faster than you can manage? Or perhaps you are anticipating significant growth? Either way, partnering with an offshoring provider in the Philippines can help your company expand while alleviating the growth pains commonly faced by businesses.
Outsourcing call centers from offshore hubs is an excellent strategy to diversify offerings, serve an expanding consumer base, and optimize financial and human resources. In particular, outsourcing to the Philippines enables access to globally renowned call center services at a fraction of the cost, leading to significant savings.
This article explores the benefits of offshore call center services in the Philippines. Continue reading to discover valuable insights and ensure well-informed outsourcing decisions.
Benefits of Offshore Call Center Services
The Philippines is known as the call center capital of the world, and it continues to impress many international organizations. Outsourcing clients worldwide know Filipinos for their remarkable personalities, skills, and work ethic.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippines also guarantees affordable service fees due to the lower cost of living in the country. Despite this, Filipino teams remain remarkably productive, making outsourcing to local service providers a fruitful investment for many client companies.
The commonly discussed advantages of Philippine offshore call centers are low labor costs, high English proficiency, and shared cultural traits with Western countries. However, outsourcing to Filipino service vendors offers so much more.
Below is a closer look at the many benefits of hiring offshore call center providers from the Philippines.
Cheaper Implementation Costs
In-house call centers are labor-intensive. They continuously hire, onboard, and train agents to fill their gaps. Large-sized call centers also tend to have an average attrition rate of 44%.
Since call centers often have a high turnover rate, the costs of replacing an agent can quickly add up. According to a Cornell study, replacing agents consumes about 16% of a company’s gross annual income.
Call centers also incur high infrastructure and maintenance costs for workstations, computers, internet connectivity, software, and tools. A third-party call center in the Philippines absorbs these expenses and only charges a service fee that is more affordable than setting up an entire system in-house.
Reduced Overhead Costs
Outsourcing to the Philippines is an affordable solution. One of the benefits of choosing a Philippine-based offshore call center is that you can leverage the country’s low labor costs. Filipino customer service agents perform the same tasks for a fraction of the cost of their North American counterparts.
Since BPO is among the Philippines’ major economic drivers, the government provides service vendors with tax breaks and monetary benefits to better attract clients abroad. Third-party providers return the savings by offering more affordable service fees to overseas clients, encouraging foreign investment.
Your BPO provider’s management team also saves money and time by hiring and training offshore agents to fit your needs. You no longer need to pay for benefits, health insurance, and taxes if you outsource call center services. Since the agents are their employees and not yours, the BPO company is responsible for covering the entire cost.
Highly Skilled Workforce
The Philippines has a rapidly growing and young population. The median age in the country is 25 years old.
This young demographic makes up much of the country’s talent supply. The statistics also indicate a highly educated workforce with a literacy rate of 99.27%. A young demographic also means more technologically inclined workers, which is crucial in call centers and information technology (IT) support.
Local colleges and universities in the Philippines produce an added 500,000 graduates to the pool of qualified and skilled workers annually. According to experts, the country will continue to benefit from this talented and young labor force in the coming years.
Excellent Service Quality
Another benefit of hiring offshore call center services from the country is the quality of service Filipino agents provide. The Philippines was named the world’s call center capital for a reason. Agents in the nation are highly proficient in English and have a warm, friendly personality, which are both crucial in call centers.
With an offshore customer service team in the Philippines, you can provide round-the-clock coverage and satisfy your customers in ways that would not have been possible otherwise. When you outsource call center services to a BPO company in the Philippines, you can use the “follow the sun” strategy to provide 24/7 customer service.
Alternatively, your offshore agents can work the night shift according to your schedule. Filipino agents have no problem working at night because they receive differential pay. Some agents may even prefer the night shift, offering fewer distractions.
Finding the right outsourcing partner means receiving excellent service that adapts to your operations. Your chosen third-party service provider handles all the internal and management problems.
Fresh and Unique Perspectives
Gaining a fresh set of eyes is another benefit of offshore call centers. Philippine professionals can analyze the way you operate and perform specific tasks. They then see where improvements can be made.
Offshore outsourcing also necessitates that you record, document, and analyze your current workflow. This step is necessary to train offshore agents. It also allows you to reexamine your standard operating procedures (SOPs) and discuss how you can enhance them before outsourcing.
Documenting and reviewing your workflows can lead to efficiency improvements and innovation throughout your company.
Exceptional BPO Industry Track Record
The Philippine BPO industry was established in 1992 and has since seen a ten-fold growth in its total revenue. It has a worldwide market share of 10%, which is a three-fold increase since 2004.
The country’s BPO sector is continuously evolving. The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) expects the market to reach a revenue of $40 billion in 2024. The organization also forecasted that the talent pool for BPO workers will reach 1.84 million by yearend.
Multinational organizations were among the first to open a base in the Philippines. These companies have since expanded their operations outside the country’s capital of Metro Manila to include cities such as Cebu, Davao, Bacolod, and more.
This continuous expansion proves the nation’s long track record of delivering attractive BPO solutions.
Stronger Cultural Compatibility and Outstanding English Proficiency
The Philippines’ high cultural affinity for the West and excellent English proficiency are some benefits companies can gain by offshoring call center services to the country.
The Philippines, formerly colonized by Spain, the United States, and Japan, continues to show parts of its past through its values and traits. The Western way of life is still a big part of Filipinos’ everyday lives, and many individuals can adapt easily to international cultures.
Furthermore, hospitality is an important part of Filipino tradition and culture. All these factors make Filipino agents easy to work and socialize with. Their warm personalities also make them suitable for customer service roles.
Customer service outsourcing in the Philippines makes sense since roughly 70% of the population is fluent in English. Many Filipino children learn to speak the language before entering school. Their proficiency in the language is reinforced when they start receiving a formal education.
English is also the main language for local commerce and a medium of instruction used in schools nationwide. The Philippines placed 20th in English proficiency worldwide, according to Education First. It also holds the second position in Asia, just behind Singapore.
Improved Quality Monitoring and Control
Another benefit of Philippine-based offshore call center services is better quality control and monitoring. Third-party call centers have appropriate tools, established processes, and trained teams to document all calls placed or received, review performance, and make adjustments as required.
Outsourced call centers also offer daily, weekly, and monthly reporting to monitor and improve call quality at each step.
Call center agents who are dedicated to answering calls offer better customer experiences. However, in-house agents and professionals must often perform additional duties for the company outside of customer service.
In contrast, offshore external call center agents are committed to their work. They have dedicated agents to handle inbound and outbound calls.
Agents also receive training to handle any task assigned to them. Their skills and knowledge help them offer top-of-the-line service in the call center space.
Better Access to the Latest Technologies, Tools, and Analytics
Investing in niche technology you may only need once may not be impractical. Instead, you can leverage the latest tools and software for free when outsourcing to a BPO provider in the Philippines.
Access to advanced tools and technologies is one of the benefits of offshore call center services in the Philippines. Reputable BPO providers often use the most recent tools, specialized technologies, and critical software. They use these resources across their projects to manage their client’s outsourced functions.
As a result, client companies can also optimize cutting-edge technology and innovations for their projects without the dreadful difficulties and hefty expenses of keeping them in-house.
Third-party call centers invest in robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and videoconferencing tools. They also invest in various software and tools for collecting and analyzing data, providing omnichannel support, and monitoring quality assurance.
Call centers in the Philippines invest highly in technology to meet the different needs of their clients. Such tools can often be too resource-limiting for an internal call center.
Flexible Workforce
Does the volume of your calls change throughout the year? If you have periods of busier or slower operations, an offshore call center in the Philippines is a great way to manage the ebb and flow.
Another benefit of hiring offshore call centers is their adaptable and scalable workforce. Outsourcing a call center to the Philippines lets you scale rapidly and efficiently without needing infrastructure or capital investment.
You can grow and shrink your team quickly based on demand and business circumstances, letting you save costs. This capability is perfect if you have specific seasonal needs, demand increases during certain periods, or financial challenges. You can generally include flexible terms and low commitments in contracts with outsourcing providers.
Outsourced call center providers are experts in handling overflows in call volume. They can easily adjust when situations level off. With their help, you need not stress about how you will handle a sudden increase in call volumes. Your offshore team already has the necessary infrastructure to conquer any challenge that comes your way.
Round-the-clock Staffing
The Philippine call center workforce is highly geared toward round-the-clock coverage. So, no matter the time zone of your company and your global end customers, BPO firms in the Philippines can offer business solutions to serve clients anytime and anywhere.
The United States is one of the biggest clients of the Philippine outsourcing sector. The two countries have a 12-hour time difference. So, the majority of the BPO workforce in the country operates at night to accommodate U.S. working hours.
Graveyard shifts are a normal and widely accepted practice in the Philippines. Working over the weekend and on rotating shifts are also standard conditions within the nation’s BPO industry.
As a result, you can easily receive 24/7 coverage as part of the benefits of hiring a Philippine-based offshore call center. This feature particularly applies to businesses relying on customer service, e-commerce, and online sales roles and requiring round-the-clock support coverage.
Robust Data Privacy and Security
Throughout the outsourcing industry’s 30-year history, the Philippines has built a highly sophisticated call center sector and a robust regulatory process to support the industry. These factors are some of the benefits of acquiring offshore call center services from the country.
The Philippines’ offshore outsourcing industry has handled highly confidential consumer data for over three decades. BPO firms have managed everything from U.S. medical records to health insurance information and consumer financial data for some of the world’s largest private and public companies.
The Philippines can provide a compliant environment and work system, and the country has adopted one of the most stringent data privacy acts. The nation enacted the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173), the first comprehensive law on data privacy in the Philippines.
Moreover, the National Privacy Commission (NPC) later established the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10173 (IRR). The IRR aims to provide detailed requirements that organizations and individuals must adhere to when handling personal data. It also discusses the sanctions and fines for failing to comply with the Act.
Lastly, Philippine BPO providers strongly adhere to data privacy regulations that their client companies follow. They implement continuous awareness and training programs for their employees to ensure compliance with the laws and standards specific to the industries and states where their outsourcing clients operate.
Strong Government Support
The Philippine government recognizes the outsourcing industry’s considerable role in the country’s economy. Hence, they give the industry strong support through incentives and regulations that persuade clients to choose the nation for their offshore operations.
This support resulted in the creation of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA). Aside from solid agency support, PEZA offers fiscal and non-fiscal benefits to BPO companies. These advantages include four-year and eight-year income tax holidays. Tax breaks and incentives enable outsourcing firms to provide more affordable solutions.
The local government further reinforced its commitment to supporting the outsourcing sector with the Philippine IT and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) Roadmap 2028. The industry aims to reach $59 billion in revenues and a labor force of 2.5 million workers by 2028.
Reduced Management Headaches and Enhanced Focus
The right BPO firm has skilled management and human resources (HR) teams to help you streamline your processes. You are still responsible for company-specific training and task delegation, but you do not need to manage the outsourced function.
This means you no longer worry about ensuring agents turn up on time, handling sick and vacation leave reporting, or dealing with tax returns. Your BPO partner handles all these management tasks so you can better focus on your primary function.
Increased focus is one of the most significant benefits of hiring offshore call center providers from the Philippines. You can grow and develop your business better when outsourcing non-core tasks to offshore teams. Instead of dealing with the daily administrative tasks and their accompanying headaches that do not add to the bottom line, you can focus on sales, innovation, profit, and growth.
Since no one ever has enough time in the day and individuals are working longer and longer hours, having an external team in the Philippines can help improve the work-life balance of your internal staff. Thus, you can promote employee wellness by delegating repetitive, time-consuming, and often cumbersome activities to your chosen BPO partner.
Less Legal Liability
Many businesses and C-level executives in developed countries must deal with lawsuits from their in-house staff, most of which are frivolous. However, when outsourcing call center services to the Philippines, your BPO partner absorbs the legal risks. You do not have to hire in-house agents or deal with internal politics or lawsuits as the external provider manages them.
Choosing offshore outsourcing services means protecting yourself from the recourse and exposure of employing workers directly or in-house. Letting a third-party partner handle hiring procedures minimizes cost and liability. Furthermore, it simplifies administrative processes. This is a significant benefit of offshoring call center services to the Philippines.
The Philippines has a well-established labor code and is generally pro-labor. This business landscape can be complex and difficult to navigate unless you have direct involvement with it. However, working with a BPO supplier means they will oversee all the ins and outs of the compliance aspects for your team’s HR.
As with any business decision, you must consider the pros and cons of outsourcing to the Philippines. In doing so, you will see that the benefits outweigh the risks.
The Bottom Line
Call center outsourcing has been the fastest-growing sector in the Philippines for over three decades. Many service providers and hubs are popping in and out of the metropolis. The country also continues to hold the title “call center capital of the world,” with projections indicating that the growing industry will not be slowing down anytime soon.
Are you contemplating outsourcing your call center processes to an offshore service provider? Acquire professional insights and make informed outsourcing decisions with the help of Unity Communications. Let’s connect today to discuss the right solution for you!
