VoIP: Uniting East and West
Source: asteriskblog.com
If there is one industry that is currently booming in Asia nowadays, it’s the Business Process Outsourcing/Call Center Industry. Because people in the western world can’t seem to stay long in a call center or telemarketing job, business owners have decided to migrate the operations elsewhere.
And guess what fuels this large enterprise.
Yep, it’s VoIP.
Asian Call Center agents throw around the word “Avaya,” and most of us know it’s powered by Asterisk.
VoIP has opened up worlds that benefit both the call center business operator, its employees, and the call center clients. Because of VoIP and Avaya, businesses can now move their call and contact centers overseas and save on salaries and operating costs. Call center operators also need not pay exorbitant fees only to operate their call centers, because VoIP is virtually free; all you need is a high-speed Internet connection.
Despite the fact that Westerners used to complain of Indian accents and the way service is done from Asia, businesses still opt to keep their contact center operations in the Asian region, because the operating costs are much, much lower than if they kept their operations in native shores. Saving up on these costs, along with being assured of employee tenure, are the reasons why they keep their operations there.
In America, a typical agent would only stay 8 to 9 months on the job. In the Philippines, in contrast, workers stay on for an average of 2.5 years. (Source) If you are a business owner, you would definitely want a longer tenure for your employees, because training new ones cost a lot, in terms of training costs, and time lost.
And yet, because of VoIP, the boundaries are dissolving, and business flows smoothly between East and West. The onus is on the Easterners to deliver the quality of work that the Western clients require. So far, the call center industry is thriving in Asia, and promises to grow more as companies improve their policies, and go to lengths to make the job more attractive and thus securing their agents’ long stay in their companies.
As mentioned, they also have to deliver to the par, or exceed the par that their Western clients require of their accounts. But so far, so good, as Microsoft, Dell, PayPal and other computer and Internet companies now have support and customer care accounts handled by Philippine call centers. Other software and tech companies are now moving their operations from India to the Philippines, because Filipinos have a better feel for Western culture, have better accents, among other advantages.
It seems that VoIP as a technology has opened worlds for the two cultural hemispheres to unite. From connecting friends and family, it is now connecting Eastern and Western businesses. A trend that seems to promise to continue to soar, as VoIP matures.
