Outsourcing Turns Philippine Culture Inside Out

MANILA, Philippines — It is called the country's latest sunshine industry, but thousands of call-center employees in the Philippines barely get to see the light of day. As dusk settles and most others are heading home, customer-support representatives begin their nocturnal shifts, energized by take-out food from the nearby McDonald's or Starbucks franchises located in the shadow of Business Process Outsourcing buildings, or BPOs. These boxy new edifices, taking their place along the skyline of Manila's financial district, Makati, are emblazoned with high-tech names like ePerformax, eTelecare, and InnovaQuest.

Call-center employees have to adjust to a new sleep cycle as well as a new way of speaking, sometimes even a new name — answering callers from America and Britain, who ask technical questions about their recently purchased computer, such as, "Why is the cup holder not working?" (Answer: "Because it's a CD-ROM drive.")

Yet new graduates are flocking to the industry, and it's not hard to see why: The average starting salary of $275 a month is well above minimum wage of about $6 a day.

"Call centers have modern workplaces, offer good wages, and you are likely to be surrounded by young people. The job usually attracts people aged 19-35 years old, regardless of their course in college," an operations supervisor at Advanced Contact Solutions, Hazel Manzano, 26, explained.

An exception to the age norm is Linda Cahilig, who, at 52, occupies an entry-level position as a customer-care representative at a top BPO. But because of her extensive previous experience at traditional companies and her two master's degrees, she is also a communications coach, with long-term goals of contributing in the training department. Her reasons for joining, just six months ago, were idealistic; she is hopeful for what the industry can do for the Philippines. "I like the fact that it is currently employing a lot of our graduates. Dedicated people who work well but would most likely be mismatched with the job requirements in traditional companies … [They] are the very ones attracted to the call centers. Personally, I want to do something to make our country the top BPO country in the world."

The Philippines, which has 105,000 of its citizens employed in the call-center industry, is quickly catching up to India, which has 270,000, according to the 2006 Asian Contact Center Industry Benchmarking Report.

The Philippine government is predicting that the country's high growth rate will result in more than a million Filipinos working as customer-service representatives by 2010. With a large population of English speakers (English is one of the country's official languages), a strong cultural affinity with America, lower unit costs, and lower attrition rates, the Philippines has definite advantages over India.

But to make the Philippines even more competitive, President Arroyo last May announced the release of $10 million for "call-center finishing schools," or training programs intended to improve the English skills of Filipinos.

Betraying one's whereabouts with an accent accident can change the course of a simple conversation. "American customers don't care if you're Indian or Filipino. As long as you're not American and have a strong accent, you are likely to get racially abused by some callers. Sometimes at the start of the call, they will ask, ‘Where are you located?' and will request for an American representative right away," Ms. Manzano said.

Telephone agents are often on the receiving end of American customers' aggression, as many American jobs continue to float offshore. Valerie De Leon, 30, said she got her most difficult calls when she handled Dell Customer Care. "Imagine this — a customer asks for a full refund for a computer that's already two years old." Ms. De Leon naturally denied the request and was then subjected to name-calling and cursing. Doing callbacks once, she was greeted with this message on the answering machine: "If you're some moron telemarketer from India or the Philippines, back off and don't you leave any messages, you … freaks!'" Now that she works with eBay's British branch to restore account takeovers by hackers, she doesn't do phone calls anymore, but she is still required to use a Western-sounding alias in her e-mails. "This is to avoid cultural discrimination. Even if I have an English-sounding first name, I wouldn't want to use it and end up being abused by irate customers."

Ms. De Leon gets annoyed when people think customer-service agents merely take in calls, like telephone operators. "Customer care is the ‘whining end,' so I'm not surprised when some of my colleagues would resign in just three days after we hit the floor," she said. "Not everyone is psychologically fit to work in call centers." The abuse from callers and the abnormal hours — a shift may start at 7 p.m. and end at 10 a.m. — take their toll on the agents' health, too. Nicotine- and caffeine-addiction as well as eye, ear, and throat disorders are many of the growing concerns of representatives and their employers. Ms. De Leon has spent two Christmases and a New Year's at the office, and she has gotten sick several times. Her work schedule forces Ms. Manzano, who has an infant, to sacrifice time she would otherwise spend with her child. "The baby sleeps with my parents at night. Sometimes, I just have to use my sick leaves when there is no one to take care of the baby."

The environment and its regulations can also be a psychological strain. For instance, an English-speaking policy is enforced at all call centers, not only on the floor but also in pantries and elevators, mostly to maintain a seamless sense of temporality and location for the American callers. "In reality, people don't follow this rule," Ms. Manzano added. "Filipinos love to talk and are more comfortable using their language."

Ms. Manzano, who's been working for BPOs since she graduated from college, started a comic strip about call-center life. "Callwork ... "pays tribute to the BPO workforce in the Philippines." Written in Taglish, the lingua franca of the Philippine people and press, the comic pokes gentle fun at call-center life. First published in her company's quarterly magazine, Ms. Manzano now relishes national exposure in the Manila Bulletin, keeping true to the spirit of the call-center employee: an identity-disoriented, highly caffeinated night owl, an affecter of twangs and stateside slang, and a locator of lost dial tones.

In one strip, the first panel begins with a caller asking a representative, "Where am I calling?"

The agent answers, "Philippines, ma'am." And the caller then responds with anguish, "Oh my gosh!!! I'm calling long distance! I must hang up!"

Despite its drawbacks, however, the call-center boom is widely considered a blessing to the economy.

Mau Perez, 26, who is a trainer at Teleperformance for a mobile phone company account, said: "A cab driver once told me that he thanks call centers for the increase in passengers at night — just three years ago, the streets were dull and lifeless."

Now, there's enough traffic for fast-food joints to remain open 24 hours, and thousands more nocturnal Filipinos are fueling up on energy drinks and lattés, keeping the night abuzz.