Definition of Call Center?

an office set up to handle a large volume of phone calls, especially for taking orders and providing
customer service.

A call center is a customer service center where employees of a company deal with inquiries,
handle technical support, or take sales, via the telephone. The call center handles customer
service as well as retail sales, billing, and collection.

A call center is a centralized department to which phone calls from current and
potential customers are directed. Call centers can
handle inbound and/or outbound calls, and be located either within a company or
outsourced to another company that specializes in handling calls.

Definition of BPO?

A BPO is responsible for executing process of another business

organization/unit. That means a BPO is outsourced to save on costs or increase
productivity.

Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO, refers to the process of contracting standard

business functions to be handled by a party outside of the company.

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the practice of contracting a specific work process or
processes to an external service provider. The services can include payroll, accounting,
telemarketing, data recording, social media marketing, customer support, and more.

BPO is short for Business Process Outsourcer. This is a third-party service provider that
handles any operations or responsibilities that a company is unable or unwilling to do in-
house. Call center services are often outsourced to BPOs where agents represent multiple
companies in different businesses.

 BPO or Business Process Outsourcing comprises of front-office customer services (like tech
support) and back-office business functions (like billing). When a company plans to cost
effectively carry out non-core work by an expert, they outsource it as a project to countries

Advantages working in a Call Center:

First Advantage of Working in a Call Center: Higher Pay & No Discrimination

the lowest basic salary that calls centers will give is twelve thousand pesos.
However, call centers also give allowances such as rice, meal, clothing, and transportation
allowance aside from the basic pay. Thus, on average, a call center agent will receive
fifteen thousand pesos every month after taxes (take home pay). Of course, there are other
call center companies that offer higher salaries.
If you are a college dropout, you will most probably have a very difficult time in looking for a
job. Call centers, however, accept college drop outs. Some will hire you even if you only
have a high school diploma and never went to college. However, most call centers look for
two years of college in applicants. Age is also not a factor in the call center industry. While
some occupations will have an age limit, there is none in the call center industry. In my
experience, I have worked with people as young as eighteen and as old as sixty. In the call
center industry, the only thing that matters is if you will be able to deliver.

Second Advantage of Working in a Call Center: No Traffic

The good thing about working nights is that I don’t have to put up with rush hour
traffic. In the morning, when everyone is heading south (to Ayala, and Ortigas), you are
heading the opposite direction and at nights when everyone is heading north, you are
heading to the business districts of Ayala and Ortigas.

Third Advantage of Working in a Call Center: Full Benefits

Another big plus of working for call centers is the benefits. Some of the benefits that
a call center agent gets are dental and health coverage. Dental coverage would normally
consist of tooth extraction, prophylaxis (cleaning), and tooth fillings while health coverage
inclusions would depend on the company but would normally consist of consultations,
diagnostic procedures like X-Ray, vaccinations, and hospital room costs. Some call centers
give health and dental coverage only upon regularization. Call Centers also pay SSS, PAG
IBIG, and Phil Health from your very first day on the job. This is in complete contrast to
companies in other industries that only make these payments upon regularization and some
don’t even make them.

Fourth Advantage of Working in a Call Center: Low Work Volume

If you are a teacher, chances are after a hectic day at work, you still bring home work
such as papers to grade and lesson plans to prepare. This never happens in a call center.
During certain occasions, however, when you don’t get to end your shift at the usual time
you end it because of a long call, you can almost always declare it as overtime and get paid
accordingly. In some calls centers, an excess of one minute to your normal working
schedule can be declared as over time already. In others, fifteen minutes is the minimum.
Take note that this only applies to the rank and file employees.

Fifth Advantage of Working in a Call Center: Dress Code

Dress codes in call centers are very informal. If you encounter a call center agent on
a Monday, he/she would probably be wearing jeans, a shirt, and rubber shoes. You
probably wouldn’t even know that this person just came from work or is about to go to work.
Some call centers even allow its employees to wear open shoes and short pants on
Fridays. A few call centers though would require its employees to wear buttoned shirts and
slacks but not business/corporate attires.

Sixth Advantage of Working in a Call Center: Prestige

Almost all call centers with international accounts are multinational companies. This
is something worth bragging about. Since most call centers are big companies with deep
pockets, you will most probably have a very nice office in business districts such as Ayala,
Fort Bonifacio, Ortigas, and Eastwood and chances are you will be working with very
popular and prestigious brand names like Microsoft, IBM, HSBC, JP Morgan, American
Express, Travelocity, AT&T, etc.  Call center offices are equipped with gyms, game rooms,
sleeping quarters, and recreation rooms for employees to blow some steam and relax and
pantries in these offices would come with drinks such as coffee, and chocolate.

Disadvantages working in a Call Center:

First Disadvantage of Working in a Call Center: Work schedule
The graveyard shift is the most difficult thing about working for a call center. We all
know our bodies are made to function in the day and sleep at night. If you work for a call
center, you have to adjust your schedule so that you work at night and sleep during the day.
You also have to adjust your eating schedule so that you eat breakfast in the evening, lunch
at midnight, and dinner in the morning. Sleeping in the day can become so difficult and
frustrating when you have noisy neighbors. Then when weekend (or your rest days) comes,
you go back to the normal sleeping time that is at night (unless you’re okay with not having
a social life). Then when you go back to your work week again, you then need to readjust to
the graveyard shift. All this adjustments will give you a feeling of jet lag and will sometimes
wear your body down.

Second Disadvantage of Working in a Call Center: Rest Days

For most call centers, rest days are not every Saturdays and Sundays. This can be a
real downer especially when you have a family or are living with your family, and everyone’s
home on Saturdays and Sundays and you’re not. It is also not uncommon for you to have
split days off (e.g.,. Saturday and Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, etc.). This can be a
problem also since most of us are accustomed to having two consecutive days off.

Third Disadvantage of Working in a Call Center: Stress

Call center work can be very stressful. Whether you work for a customer service,
sales, or technical service account, you will encounter heavy stress. This is part of the
reason a lot of call center agents are smokers. The stress from call center work does not
only come from the nature of the work, but it also comes from the culture of the customers
that we deal with. American customers tend to be very demanding and impatient. You will
encounter American customers who are very insistent on getting what they want and will go
to the extent of talking to a supervisor just to get what they want. Because of our culture (as
Filipinos), most of them will seem to be impolite and rude. Take note though that this
behavior is normal in their culture.

Fourth Disadvantage of Working in a Call Center: Monotonous Work

This is why most people say that call center work makes one dumb. Call center work
is notoriously very repetitive and boring. At first, it will seem challenging at first, however
after saying the same things and encountering the same scenarios over and over again,
you would tend to become bored with your job. This is one of the reasons why some call
center agents hop from one call center to another.

Fifth Disadvantage of Working in a Call Center: Too much change

One of the things that I dislike about working in a call center is the many changes
that can happen around you. This is especially true if you are working in a relatively new
account. Schedules also change regularly in call centers and a new schedule would
normally mean a new team that comes with a new supervisor and new team mates. A new
team every few weeks or so can be quite taxing on one’s social skills especially if you don’t
have a lot of it.

Sixth Disadvantage of Working in a Call Center: You are an Avaya Slave

What is an Avaya slave? An Avaya slave is a term that I coined, and it refers to call
center agents who are hooked up to their Avaya phones eight hours a day, and forty hours
a week. If you are a government employee, a nurse, a teacher, or a bank teller, you would
probably have an occasional chit chat with your employees. You also probably are not very
conscious about your coffee breaks and bathroom breaks. During office hours, you probably
have experienced stepping out of the office to run some errands like banking. All the things
mentioned above are things that you won’t be able to do as a call center agent. As a call
center agent your fifteen minute breaks are exactly fifteen minutes, you have to man your
phone your entire shift, your bathroom breaks are also counted and limited, there is little
chance for you to gossip with your office mates as you will be taking calls almost
continuously, and there is absolutely no way for your boss to allow you to step out of the
office during your shift. If you want to look at it very negatively, you can even say that a call
center is run like a factory production line wherein your only rest is when you get off from
work.

What is Customer Service?

the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or
services.

Customer service is the support you offer your customers — both before and after they buy
and use your products or services — that helps them have an easy and enjoyable experience
with you. Offering amazing customer service is important if you want to retain customers and
grow your business.

Customer service is the act of taking care of the customer's needs by providing and delivering
professional, helpful, high quality service and assistance before, during, and after the customer's
requirements are met.