Welcome to Accentrain!

We're glad you found us. There are thousands of websites dedicated to the call center industry, both national and international, but most of them don't give you a clear cut image of what the industry is really about. The reason? Well, maybe they just don't have the hands-on experience we do. Living it is drastically different from pretending to know you know something about it. We lived and breathed the industry since it started here in the Philippines. We all started as agents and "graduated " from the industry wizened Account Consultants, Training Directors, and Operations Managers. We are who we are now because of the call center industry, and we just want to give something back. Knowledge is a two way street, and it empowers us all.

The Call Center Industry

The Call center industry is an emerging industry in the Philippines. Offshore outsourcing is regarded as one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and Business Process Outsourcing became the latest trend in the services sector for the year 2000-2006. It is estimated that 112,000 people were working for call centers in the Philippines last year (2005), bringing in revenues of US$ 1.12 billion for that year alone. This was a sharp increase from 5 years ago (2000) when call centers employed only 2,400 people and earned US$ 24 million.

The growth of the sunshine industry continues to be phenomenal. The Asian Call Center Review ranked the Philippines #1 in the offshore call center industry for the Asian region, surpassing India with 72 registered call centers in 2003 compared to less than 10 in 2000. The Philippine Board of Investments (BOI) estimates a growth rate of 100 percent annually, with less than 1,000 seats in 2000 to more than 69,000 at the end of 2004.

The Philippine Factor

In 2004, the Philippines captured 20 percent of the total world market share in contact center services. The Dept. of Commerce and Industry said the Philippines could capture 50 percent of the world English-speaking market in 2008. This industry, aside from contributing 12 percent our country's gross national product, is also one of the leading employment sources for Filipino college graduates. If all the estimates are correct, one million Filipinos will be working in the call center industry by the year 2010, generating a whopping US$12 billion in revenue.

As the indusrty continues to skyrocket, so does the demand for top quality, English speaking call center agents who can also give exceptional customer service. The turnover rate for call centers now is 6 out of 10, meaning out of the 10 applicants who undergo training, 4 are bound to leave. This is a big loss for call centers who have in-house training because it takes money to train people. Aside from basic costs like electricity and the salaries of trainers, the applicants also get an allowance. And lets not forget the biggest factor of them all: time. Time wasted can never be recovered. Any competent contact center would not want to waste time and resources training someone who is either not interested, who is just there for the allowance, or needs a lot of work to begin with. The "Training Bond" clause the major call centers employ doesn't work anymore because nobody is afraid of it, and no one gets prosecuted for it. This is where independent call center training workshops come in.