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During the start of this decade when call center and BPO industry was just sprouting in India, agents were trained to fake accent while speaking to customers in the US, UK or Australia. Those days companies never used to tell customers where their call might land. Third party vendors insisted on using pseudo names for agents while interacting with customers. The huge savings in cost resulted in more outsourcing to India. When the job loss became apparent in the west, waves of protest started. This backlash sensitized the Indian BPO industry to a large extent. Now the stress is on neutral accent (minus mother tongue influence) and one can even mention their real name as in many large MNCs. Disclosing the location is also permitted.

But India’s call center is facing a big threat from emerging market of Philippines. India has lost thousands of jobs to Philippines in the last few years. Prominent in them are out bound calls involving sales, recovery etc. Statistics shows that agents in Philippines make more sales and recovery per calls. Apart from Philippines, voice processes are also moving to eastern European countries. It is said that US companies favour Philippines because of cultural affinity and similar accent. US commends almost 50% of outsourcing to India and if it is moving jobs to a certain destination that it will definitely effect. But there is a distinction on what types of jobs are moving to Philippines. Jobs like sales, recovery, basic customer service are favoured for Philippines. However, technical jobs, management or any job which requires high level of skill are still favoured in India. This will too probably be the scenario in the coming years.

Finding talent for voice processes (call center) is still tough as it was in the past. The reason why it is so difficult to find voice agents has to do a lot with the Indian education system. Even in English medium schools students learn English in Indian accent. This is where the problem starts. So if this problem has to be fixed it has to be fixed here. Teach the students English as it is spoken in the west or neutral accent. BPO/call center industries can tie up with prestigious schools to provide know how in this regard. The English teacher should also be able to teach accent and pronouncation. If majority of customer service related voice process are moved to Philippines, the most affected will be the agent level employees. Indian companies will be least affected as they have become cleaver with times. They will start a new operation where the jobs are re-located. Companies like Genpact, Wipro BPO, Intelenet, Aegis BPO and Firstsource have already opened offices there.

So agents who are working for call centers and who are aspiring to work there, it is time to upgrade you skill set. As India is moving into the decisive phase of BPO industry. The cost of operation is almost same in both India and Philippines. So the jobs which have been moved can be brought back if India can offer better skill in those areas. This can be done by teaching students how to speak English with neutral accent from school level. The second thing to do is encouraging domestic BPO industry. Real valued customer service is almost non existent apart from some good companies and exceptions in some cases. Customer care should be encouraged in both Government and private sector. The wage in Indian domestic BPO industry is very low. If they want stability they should give decent salary so that people think of the job more than changing it.

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