Philippine Call Centers

December 4, 2006 by reyna11
Filed under: Uncategorized

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Call centers are an employment boon to the Philippines. It has employed thousands and thousands of my fellow Filipinos.

Check out Ortigas Center at night directly across the Podium. You’ll find most of the Call Centers at the Discovery Suites Building or at this building (dunno the name) where PNB Ortigas is. You see all those call center employees smoking along the stairs.

You can also see them right around 5 or 6pm marching towards the RCBC Plaza building in Makati City, the main financial district of the Philippines. They look good, nicely dressed young men and women, me starbucks coffees and mcdonald’s in hand. They go to work serving the United States, just as everyone else here in Philadelphia and everywhere in the US is heading home.

The Philippines have an appeal to westerners for putting up Call Center shop: culture and employee loyalty.

Our long history with the United States, including several decades of American colonial rule helped that. We listen to American music, follow the pop culture, adore and to a certain extent glorify Hollywood stars, we follow American sports and as a matter of fact, sometimes we think American, which is why we are more attuned to the Western culture than most Asians. And as Filipinos, we have this uncanny ability to easily adapt to a variety of accents. Which is why, I was really, really surprised to receive this from one of my avid readers.

Remember, I am warning you - this is not representative of the entire call center in the Philippines. I’m sure there are some very, very fine Philippine Call Centers. I should know, they handle my mortgage, my T-Mobile and credit card questions. Some of them have some really good American english accents, that I could barely notice.

Now, if this video is true, then this is probably one of those outliers. That is, extra-ordinary. I mean, I doubt if this video is for real. Was this staged? Was this crafted somewhere else? Is this a promotional campaign to create traffic to someone else’s blogsites? And what? At the expense of these call center employees? What’s going on? I hope I am wrong!

I am irked because I know of so many of my friends sons and daughters working for the call centers in Makati, Ortigas, Libis and even in Cebu. I could only imagine their reaction if the voice in the background is that of their daughter!

So, is this a prank? Because this could be very, very devastating to one of the biggest employment source of our country, you know.

Obviously, this came from another blogsite, but if they’re trying to root out some really bad call centers, trust me, the company in the United States are not that dumb to hire call center agents like this one on the video. In all my years in the United States, I know by heart who is a Filipino call center agent and who is an Indian. And I know how good our English is - not that I am comparing them to Indians because theirs is British.

In other words, I doubt and I really question the authenticity of this video, after all, if they can paint brush Ms. Panganiban’s bottle-body in some commercials, it’s so easy to record this video and plug it on the internet as one of the biggest Philippine call center anomaly.

BAKIT TAYO PANG MGA PINOY ANG SISIRA SA KAPWA PINOY? MAHIRAP NA NGA MAGHANAP NANG TRABAHO SA PILIPINAS TAPOS ETO PA?! SO, I’D LIKE TO KNOW. TOTOO BA TO? OR MGA SIRANG KATHANG ISIP?

So, here’s the video and judge for yourself and I’d like to hear from you:

As requested… I deleted the said negative video whose only objective is to destroy the Philippine Call Centery Industry. I asked my fellow Filipino Blogger to do the same thing and be sensitive to these kinds of negative publicity.

We all must help our country to move up not down the drains. It’s bad enough that we get bad publicity from some wayward western press, it is sickening to see that we get bad publicity from our kapwa Pinoys.

Tags: Business & Economy

Comments

6 Comments on Philippine Call Centers

luke on Mon, 4th Dec 2006 1:42 pm

reyna, with so many readers looking for your with and humour in giving business advices, i would not even give a blogspace for this stupid video as i am sure there is a self-serving objective behind it and you may just be right. my suggestion is delete the video. that video is not right for your site.

[Reply]

kutang bato on Mon, 4th Dec 2006 3:58 pm

I agree with Luke.

[Reply]

Chuva Chienes on Mon, 4th Dec 2006 4:52 pm

I agree with Luke as well. Take the video down.

[Reply]

Reyna Elena on Tue, 5th Dec 2006 1:45 am

Thank you all for your comments! I deleted the video.

It angered me because I have newphews and nieces working for the call industry. When I am in Manila, everyone speaks english at home and I know for one thing that they have excellent american accented english.

I feel that the video posted by this Filipino blogger is a total upfront to us Pinoys. I really believe it was just nothing more than to drive traffic to his blogsite.

What a cheap filipino blogger you are and you know who you are!

[Reply]

bea on Tue, 5th Dec 2006 5:20 am

gandang araw, mahal na reyna.

ang isang pinag-aral ko pong kapatid ay nasa call center. masaya naman po sisya sa trabaho, kahit minsan nakaka-stress daw ang mga irate clients. i always enjoy her stories kapag umuuwi siya ng bahay at nagkikita kami (sa sobrang erratic ng schedule niya, minsan lang kaming magkausap kahit nasa iisang bahay lang kami). i would like to share with your readers two of her observations. ganito rin daw ang observations ng mga katrabao niya:

1. kapag foreigner daw ang tumatawag, super nakakahinga sila nang maluwag. kasi the foreigners daw are objective and direct to the point kapag nakikipag-usap. kapag pinoy, madalas daw paiikut-ikutin ka as if to kill your average handling time para masira ang performance mo. tapos, mabilis mag-irate ang mga pinoy.

2. kapag nasa Pilipinas ang tumatawag at galing sa isang probinsya ang call, lihim na nagagalak ang byuti ng mga agents. para sa kanila, the farther the province away from metro manila, the better. bakit kamo? kasi raw, yung mga caller na galing sa malalayong probinsya ang mga pinakamagagalang. mabibilang daw sa daliri ang mga callers na galing sa metro manila na nagpapakia ng paggalang.

sa unang observation, tama ang sinabi mo sa itaas, mahal na reyna: na tayo pa bang mga pinoy ang sisira sa kapwa natin? mga pinoy din ba ang sisira sa performance ng mga pinoy na call center agents? magaling daw magpaikut-ikot ang mga mga pinoy callers. may ilan pa nga raw who really try to irk the agent by asking kung ilang minuto na silang nag-uusap. mahalaga kasi sa mga agent na ma-maintain ang average handling time nila. it reflects on their performance.

sa ikalawang observation, nangangahulugan ba na lubhang naapektuhan na ng industriyalisasyon at modernisasyon ang pagiging magalang ng mga pinoy?

[Reply]

reyna elena on Tue, 5th Dec 2006 11:39 am

“sa ikalawang observation, nangangahulugan ba na lubhang naapektuhan na ng industriyalisasyon at modernisasyon ang pagiging magalang ng mga pinoy?”

I was actually thinking about the contrary! I say this, because I have been away sa Manila for many, many years and when I lived in Manila last year for about 8 months, one thing I noticed - lahat - ATE, KUYA…. SIR, I am nevah, evah, evah used to being called SIR. As a matter of fact, I insist that they call me REYNA, but I can’t win. Magagalang talaga ang mga Pinoy. Now, this is from me from the outside looking in. And you my dear Bea is the one from the inside looking in - so you must have a much better observation.

modernity and the economic phase sa manila definitely have social implications. tingnan mo na lang sa makati, ortigas at keso sity, dumami yong mga conio. i think this is the result of pressure na magi kang asensado and because they can’t keep up, conio ang dating!

i see them sa starbucks! nakakatuwa kung minsan!

[Reply]

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