Call Centers

CALL CENTER operations were barely disrupted last week even as floods in Metro Manila caused by torrential rain paralyzed many workers in the capital. “Operations were normal as of Wednesday. Although it was not 100% normal, operations were still ongoing,” Jojo J. Uligan, president of Contact Centers Association of the Philippines (CCAP) told BusinessWorld in…

Despite the telephone being the most popular channel for support, it also has the reputation for being the most frustrating method. Repeating information to agents, waiting on hold, and navigating phone menus are the main reasons customers dread the call center. Negative caller experiences drive customers to the competition, and to share these experiences with…

CEBU, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment-7 noted several violations committed by Direct Access Corporation and its officials during their inspection conducted last week. In a press conference yesterday, representatives of the company’s 664 terminated workers revealed the said violations.

Credit-card company’s outsourcing leaves a lot to be desired at point of (attempted) purchase Where Is Baltimore? I did something so unusual last week as to trigger the “fraud” section at my credit-card company to freeze my account. No, I didn’t walk into a Tiffany’s somewhere and try to buy a bauble for thousands of…

Contact centers struggle with retention in Egypt. CAIRO: The Contact Center industry in Egypt is booming. With the onset of the social media revolution and the ever-changing profile of today’s customer, contact centers have gone to great lengths in recent years to keep their service levels in line with escalating expectations. Whilst technical upgrades and…

“I need money for school expenses. Good thing there are call centers,” said Maria Christina Bactol, 22, an industrial engineering student from the University of the Philippines Diliman.

The future of the contact center, the very near future, is all about integrated technology. We have a lot of things going on now, a lot of separate channels where consumers want to interact with companies, and a lot of separate systems trying to handle it all. The future is about tying it all together,…

Tonight, writer and actor, Mike Daisey, was supposed to bring his one-man show, “Teching in India,” to the Spoleto stage, at the Emmett Robinson Theater. In recounting his travels across the Indian subcontinent, he was supposed to shine a light on the little-understood and often-misrepresented world of curry houses, prop shops and call centers that…

While the president has been urging “insourcing,” the government has been sending money to the Philippines to train foreign workers for jobs in English-speaking call centers.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Arguing that 3,300 working Americans should not face severe economic hardship because their employer chooses to offshore call center work, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) has requested that the U.S. Department of Labor grant Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits to T-Mobile USA customer service representatives at seven U.S. call centers enters…

Voice problems plague one in four workers at call centers, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Ulster in the U.K. found that 25 percent of people on the job — which, as everyone knows, involves lots of talking on the phone — has had a work-related sore throat, loss of voice…

T-Mobile workers, CWAers and labor activists rally at T-Mobile USA corporate headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. Below, activists carried banners with messages from workers at the seven call centers T-Mobile wants to close in June.

Multimillion dollar USAID program trains college students in the Philippines to work in offshore call centers, but one Congressman tells InformationWeek he’s going to put a stop to it.

A day after the controversial Manny Pacquiao victory over Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez on Nov. 12, 2011, a call center agent in Manila handling a foreign satellite television account got a call from someone he suspected to be Mexican.

The information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry is looking to fill approximately 120,000 jobs this year in a variety of increasingly value-driven segments such as healthcare, engineering, animation and accounting.

LONG HOURS. Many call center agents lead unhealthy lives.LONG HOURS. Many call center agents lead unhealthy lives. MANILA, Philippines – The Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) wants call center workers to become active in fitness programs to keep not only themselves, but the businesses they sustain, healthy.

European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines launched a four-month Call Center Olympics Manila:  The European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines launched a four-month Call Center Olympics starting April, to help agents of business outsourcing companies (BPO) reform themselves from unhealthy lifestyle. The European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines (ECCP), with the help…

Business PBX Solution Call center management involves using call center metrics to measure and guide the performance of call center agents or representatives. Call center software provides opportunities to gather call center statistics, generate call center reports, and provide regularly scheduled feedback to call center employees.

Key performance indicators (KPI) are all the rage these days for contact centers, but they aren’t all created equally. It’s always a good idea to collect metrics, of course, but are you collecting the right ones? And what are you doing with them once you’ve got the data?

Tagalog CSR Jobs basically refer to customer service representatives that communicate in Tagalog or a mix of Tagalog and English. Most available Tagalog CSR Jobs usually pertain to call center of local companies that caters the local market.

MANILA, Philippines — Call center and outsourcing services provider TELUS International Philippines (TIP) has signed a new partnership with Asia Pacific College (APC) for the TELUS International University (TIU).

MANILA, Philippines—Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz is now advising some 100,000 unemployed Filipino nurses in the country to try their luck in the booming business process outsourcing  industry or call centers which she said had “non-traditional” health-related aspects.

The oldest call centers in the Philippines apparently are the local call centers of major business companies that provided service to local customers such as call center of credit card institutions (BPI, Citibank), utility companies like Meralco as well as telecommunications companies like PLDT, Smart and Globe. However over the last decade, the Philippines had…

Whenever attending a job interview, it is important to be prepared and ready both physically, emotionally and intellectually. In the call center industry, job interviews are usually divided into two parts, the initial and final. The initial interview is basically an assessment of the applicant’s general skills and predisposition if one qualifies and fits the…

Call center companies often promote top performing agents to managerial positions, but is the practice of hiring from within a wise talent management decision?

Last month I wrote about a bill before Congress that would both help fight the offshoring of call-center jobs and protect consumers. Now the countries where we have been sending those jobs are organizing a lobbying campaign to fight the bill.

Women in India’s Call Center Industry Relatively high wages and the opportunity to be part of an upscale, globalized work environment draw many in India to the call center industry. At the same time, night shift employment presents women, in particular, with new challenges alongside the opportunities. This book explores how beliefs about what constitutes…

The Call center industry is one of the biggest employers of Filipinos today especially for young college graduates. In some cases, a college degree may not even be necessary. What is important is that one speaks fluently in English. The rest of the requirements can be addressed tor proper and sufficient training. The work of…

A demanding workload and difficult hours make working in the call center industry a highly stressful job. A study conducted by the International Labor Organization last year revealed that over forty percent of night shift employees in the business process outsourcing sector work the night shift, which is associated with occupational safety and health concerns.

Virtual At-Home Call Center Employees working for Apple File Class Action Lawsuit against the company for allegedly misclassifying Employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying taxes and overtime pay.