Hello Every one!!!!
I get allot of email about people looking for jobs so if you are interested in working in a call center here is the best jobs website that you can use. Click the link below and fill in all the forms correctly.
I have been working in the call center Industry for almost 4 years now and I have been to several centers already specifically in Manila, Philippines
I have been to the BIG ones and to the small ones too but I started off small in a 50 seat center in Ortigas owned by an American, I was 18, young and just got off from my first few years in college and I had totally no Idea of what the call center industry is, as months passed by everything was running really smoothly not until I got rushed to the hospital for anxiety panic attack and has been restrained by my parents from working for the center and was forced to go back to school instead. A few years had past and here I am back into the Call Center Industry and this time I aimed for the BIG ones and luckily I did get in to one and to another one and another one and finally I went back to where I started the small one in Ortigas owned by an American.
So I’ve been there done that and these and here is how I see BIG ones VS. The small ones, of course this is opinionated:
BIG ones have extensive and complex structures of employees both in operations and management and I’d say are a lot more famous than the smaller ones because they have their dedicated team for marketing and all that. Job seeker also finds it more stable to stay and work with a BIG call center primarily because they feel more secured about their jobs if it’s a BIG company and indeed that was one factor that I myself considered when I applied in one on the BIG ones and indeed I got those security stuffs that I was wanting, a really promising salary, I had an HMO(Health Insurance), A term life insurance, free meals, nice BIG parties, Gym discounts and a lot more perks and privileges that a BIG center can give you. In short I drowned into it and loved it so much but as time goes by you will finally figure out the cons and the flaw of the BIG ones, too much stress and politics and pretty much a very lesser chance of leveraging your career standings because for once this BIG call centers have thousands of employees and pretty much just needs a few hundred supervisors, managers and trainers so for you to be able to step it up one more ladder up you are in for the greatest competition of your life and not to mention again the great and strong politics in the BIG ones. On the other hand working for the smaller centers isn’t the worst experience at all, although they lack some of the perks and privileges of the BIG ones there are still a lot more to love on to this centers, right now I am back in to the small ones primarily because I finally had enough of everything of the BIG ones, inhumane schedules, never ending schedule swaps and changes, raging politics and all that. Now I may not have my HMO(Health Insurance) or any of the said Grand perks and privileges and not even the Humongous amount of salary I used to have but at least with this small company I find less politics and mere peace and harmony with my fewer co-workers, a bit slacker rules, metrics and regulations than of the BIG ones which makes you feel more relaxed and stress free but still you get to be paid a nice and decent premium and most of all you still have a job and a paycheck per paycheck life just like with the BIG ones and most of all you can reach your goal position and ladder up your post in no time. In the end BIG or small what is most important is that you have your livelihood and that you are happy on what you do and that you do it BEST.
The Philippines has officially overtook India in call centers and voice related work as of today, and how exactly did that happen?
· The Philippines was colonized by the Americans for roughly 48 years so there is a strong similarity and familiarity towards the American culture and many Filipinos now live in the USA as well.
· What is more, English is used in the education system and is widely spoken by Filipinos. And the Philippines Produces Hundreds of thousands of English Speaking College Graduates each year.
· Filipino officials visited India to See for themselves and study if why Call Centers Industry is such a big one in India. When they returned to the Philippines, they rationalized the approval process for the setting up of call centers and changed their rules to allow individual buildings to become special economic zones offering tax breaks, quick clearances for permits and exemptions from import duties for necessary IT and Telco equipment. In addition, a government-sponsored training program through TESDA was created to improve the English and communication skills of students who wish to work in the industry.
· Philippine senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said she would file a measure to further jump-start support for the BPO industry and its workers plus she urged other legislators to come up with laws that would support this so-called “booming sunshine industry” in the country.
· The Philippines has a lot more younger work force than those of in India.
To summarize, The Philippines has formally overtaken the Call Center crown from India by adopting through a lot of things and by still curving literacy through the industry as we speak. But in the contrary we are still far behind by a few aspects by India Including IT and software related jobs since India produces about nearly half a million IT graduates each year. In short The Philippines has overtaken India in call centers, however it remains far behind in more sophisticated outsourcing services.
I’ve been working in the call center industry for almost 2 years now and this is my first job and I can say that it is not an easy job. The first few months were really though for me, I was having a hard time adjusting to my schedule since it was a night shift or most commonly coined in the call center industry as “GRAVEYARD SHIFT” and I am kind of used to waking up early in the morning when I was still schooling and I mean everyone else is kind of used to waking up in the morning when the sun shines instead of waking up in the evening when the sun is setting already. So on the first few months of my existence as a call center agent I always have this thought in mind that “I wish I was on the morning shift instead, at least it was a normal life. During those unending night shifts I was always sleepy and my team leader will always have to give me warnings about me being sleepy and slouchy and worst is that I was given a formal written warning for falling asleep during a call and what is even worst after that is a suspension because I fell asleep for almost 5 minutes during a call. Also I feel like my immune system is not coping up that much with the graveyard schedules I feel week and I also don’t have time to exercise or alt least sweat up a bit coz after my night shift I will be too weak to exercise and I’d be better off sleeping instead. After that you wake up in the evening and go to work again. Pretty much the same cycle everyday. Most of the time I would be half awake and would say to myself I do wanna go to work I dowanna go back to sleep and worst is when you over sleep and get up late for work but in the end there’s nothing that you can do but to wake up, prepare and go to work.
On the positive side I like night shift coz there are no heavy traffic and you also get at least 25-30% Night Differential for working nights and I of course love the people and find it fun to work in the early morning when the sun is shining brightly, but besides that that is pretty much it. I mean you know how dangerous it is to go out during wee hours so for those people saying how easy and chicken feed call center jobs are, try to experience it first before you put us down.
Morning shift is my dream shift It’s like heaven for call center agents. It’s like you’re a normal person waking up early in the morning to prepare yourself and go to work. Right now I’m in a call center company that deals with Australian clients so I got to have a normal day shift with still the same perks of a call center which I am so loving right now. We have a lot of time talking to our bosses and exchanging stories of everyday life without feeling drowsy or sleepy. After work I can still go to the gym and exercise which is something I can’t do before. In other words I love my schedule and the company that I am with right now. Sometimes I still get to be late because of the traffic, but I can really adjust on my time to travel to go to the office all though Morning is also equivocal to Traffic the office is really accessible to all places and plus the sun is shining brightly and I fear nothing as I know a lot less crimes are out there compared to being out in the wee hours. Morning shift is really my dream schedule and It’s safe to say also of the majority of the call center people in the Philippines.
The Pros and Cons of working in a Call Center in the Philippines My purpose of writing this article is for people who are planning to get into the Call Center Industry and as well for people who are currently in the
Industry to mainly re-evaluate their career in this field.
Let us start with the Pros of working in a Call Center in the Philippines:
Working in a Call Center is considered as one of the most high-paying job in the Philippines.
University diploma is usually not required as long as you are 18 years old, you are knowledgeable in using the computer and most Microsoft office applications and you speak good English, you are eligible to apply.
The trainings are also free; you get to be compensated already while you are on training.
There is also no age-limit.Even students can work in a Call Center since the Schedules are very flexible
day and night, so they can work nights and study mornings or vice versa, being said that for everyone’s sake yes guys, there are also Day Shifts in Call centers, most clients are Australians and people from the UK.
Most Call Centers also provide their employees Health cards for them and
their family. They also provide you with Term Life Insurance Plans and even Tuition Fee
reimbursements. On most companies also upon regularization you get additional perks and privileges like Appraisals, Rice Subsidy and Gym discounts and a lot more.
Talking on a different page if you are single and ready to mingle, the Call Center industry also gets large pool of Good Looking men and women as most of them are yuppies and newly grads.
Gaining promotions in this industry is also easy; if you’re a team player, and you are knowledgeable enough to handle your tasks efficiently then you can get a promotion. What is also different is that in the Call Center Industry, you can get apromotion as early as 3 months, unlikely to that of the regular jobs.
And I guess the least that they realize is that they get to experience indirectly how it is to work overseas specifically in the united states, they also get the chance to jump into the western culture since most of the
clients/customer’s they are dealing with are westerns.
After the Pros, It’s time to talk about the Cons:
Since most of the clients of Call Center in the Philippines are Western Countries like The United States, Canada and the like, most of the Call Centers in the Philippines starts their operations during the night since
the Philippine time is directly opposite to the time in the United states and Canada and the like, so these means Night Shifts and Graveyard shifts for their employees.There is also no assurance of retaining a specific schedule throughout the year compared to normal day jobs, in a call center shifts are flexi meaning it can change on a weekly basis, monthly or quarterly too which also means that there are no guarantees that you will get a week-end rest.
You at times may also have to work on Philippine Holidays since you are following a different calendar, time and also you are supporting a different country with a whole different sets of their own holidays, so more likely that you will also follow their holidays instead, but take note that there are also 24/7 accounts so the operations is 24 hours a day and 7 days a week which means that at time you might also work even on your client’s holidays. Health is one of the greatest risk in this industry if you do not know how to balance your work – home life, since you most likely work at night, you tend to sleep all day long when everyone else is up and you may also lose your Body Clock and may most likely be a result of non-regular meal times
and eating habits, lastly Call Center agents accounts to at least 30-40% of tobacco use in the country.
Domestic issues and other sort of relationship issues from family and friends and everyone else may also account to this type of job since it is a bit challenging for you to cope up to everyone in your family and with your friends who are most likely working the normal day jobs. Turning to the other page, Call Center people party hard during the Morning and also gets that tendencies of being alcoholic because drinking in the
morning after shifts helps you sleep better in the morning when the sun is shining bright.
Not to mention the risks of you getting hold-up, snatched and abused when traveling going to work on wee hours.
Lastly when your client or so called accounts in the CC you are into pulled out or closed down, you will have to either resign or wait in floating status for you to transferred into any other clients/accounts available.
Now that you are aware of the Pros and Cons of working in a call center in The Philippines, It is all up to you if you will live up to the challenge and get paid really BIG Time or stick with the regular low-paying Day Jobs.
Normally just like the others who want’s to work in a call center industry, they up with the big salary and the signing bonus that the company’s offering. Based on personal observations, call center salaries have been skyrocketing here in the Philippines.
Living in a call center agent can be hurled with so much stress. Living with bunch of struggling, happiness, competition, teamwork and sometimes disappointments, you can experience all of that in our call center world but we have to learn to love it. Being Focus and Positive these two main ingredients can put you on the level of success, just like other field of work. It’s not like you come in, have a sit, put your headset on, make a call, get a sale, cigarette break, make a call, get a sale, go home and just wait for the cut off and then do it again and again. Being a call center agent needs flexibility and determination in order for you to get your goal.
Working in a call center industry is quite hard for the beginners. It’s interesting for everyone because the pay is pretty good. Some call center is offering a big salary for the people who had an call center experiences but some it only raise to minimum pay. Based on my experience as a call center agent, I’ve started with the basic pay of 12 thousand per month, that’s not big enough to support my family and my self. It is also depends on the situation or status in life of the person who’s working on a call center company with the basic pay of 12 thousand per month, if he/she is single and without any problem supporting a family he/she can do or spend the salary that he have earned , but if you had a family to support to it’s really hard to tell that the basic pay of 12 thousand or 15 thousand is enough to support your family and paying your bills.
Some call center companies they don’t know how to handle or take care of their agents. Salary is the main reason the main reason of all call center agents, first things first the company, They should add incentives so that agents will be motivated to come to work regularly.
I just got done talking with a friend that owns a call center here and he talked about the CCAP seminar which he said was really good! He talked about the VP of etelecare and how he said the Philippines was very different from the States but they can still be trained on how to change there culture.
Here are some of his stories that he talked about in his seminar about Philippines call centers.
First he was walking into a mall here in the Philippines and when you are going to a mall the have guard office pat you down to make sure that you don’t have any guns on you and he got up set about it because in the States there is no guards patting you down, you just walk right in no problems. So being upset that he got padded down be went back out to have a smoke to clam him down but then remembering that he is going to have to go through it all again no matter what. That’s the first one, here in the Philippines every one is already us est to guards at the mall from when they were born so that’s the Philippines norm.
Next one
He is looking for a store so he asks his wife to ask the guard were it is at and he say its straight and then take a left and there it is. So he goes straight and takes a left but its not there, so his wife ask another guard and he says not it’s down on the next floor, you go straight and then take a left. So they go to the next floor and they go straight and then go left but the same thing no store, so his wife asks another guard and he says no no it’s on the 3rd floor then you go straight and then go left. So the finally founds it but it took him all that long to find this place which made him up set which is not customer services, that’s the Philippines Norm, if you where in the States most times the person would tell you where it is and then most times say tell you what I have some free time how about I show you, now that is customer service.
Next one
He gets to the store and he is looking for a serge protector for his 42″ LCD TV because he heard that the Philippines power can go up and down and he wanted to protect his 3,000 dollar tv. So he walks into the store and there are 9 guys just standing around pretty much doing nothing, he looks at one of the sergue protectors which there are 50 different kinds and he points at one and one of the sales guys comes over to him and says that it’s the best one that they have and he asked why? The sales rep said because it has a five minute delay if the power ever surges or shuts off, he asked why is this five minute delay so important and the sales rep could only tell him that it had a five minute delay and the parts are made in Japan. So now he is not sure what to buy so he goes to a TV stop and he sees some thing like what he is looking for and he said, hey I need some thing like that and he asks them if it has a five minute delay and the sales rep did not have any idea about what he was talking about and said all I know this is what we used, it’s called Panther. So he goes back to the other shop and tells the sales rep I want a Panther that is the best one but the rep says we don’t sale Panther but this one I was telling you about is the best and he says tell you what, if you buy this I will come and install it for you. Now the VP of etelecare says now that is customer service!
So now the sales rep has installed this at his house to his TV and everything is good to go, DONE but he has no real way to test it out to see what happens? So he calls the build admin and ask them about his TV and surge protector to see if it would work, the build admin just laughed at him and said sir, the whole build is set up with back up generators and surge protectors so no matter what if the power every surged or system would cover it.
Here is his point on this one, the sales rep did not ask him enough question to figure out why he needed this surge protector. When you are dealing with sales or customer service you need to define what the customer is asking and how you can help them, the Philippines norm is just sale and you need to know about the products that you are selling.
The seminar end good and he said that you need to train your people well on how that the States acted and what they want, kind out what they are looking for and why they need the product they are selling.
Who every did this seminar from what it sounds like they did a very good job, I would love to meet them.
I hope I got the story right.
CCAP sounds like the real deal, I will be at the next one.
I have been talking to allot of people and friends that have some bad blood with some of the people that they have partnered with or are working with and when some thing bad happens every one thinks that the Philippines is the wild wild west. Pretty much they all start saying that I’m going to kill you are have you taking care of and they really mean it but almost 99.9% of the time nothing happens. I have had many talks with some friends about this because they are worried about some one that is really going to kill them because a deal with south and most times people take this very serious but for me I have heard it a couple times and nothing had ever happened. Allot of people that have never spent time in the Philippines really have no idea, all they hear is the stories from internet or friends that might have spent a little bit of time here. They Philippines is a nice place and it’s no wear near as bad as people say that it is. There are goods and bad’s about the Philippines but it’s like that in any country that you go.
If you very come here to the Philippines just make sure that you are staying in a safe area and you will be fine.
Is Dave really coming? I don’t know but I love his music, I hope he does.
The new hit band
