Customer support in the Philippines?

As I was trying to get some refunds related to some of the airline-caused incidents we experienced during our trip, I was transported to a Filipino service center that Air France – KLM seems to have chosen for handling their customer relations. 

On Wednesday I spent 2 hours, spread in 3 calls, to get through! This European airline is not the only one to rely upon call centers in the Philippines to handle that work. Over the years, I have experienced “support” in Asia, like India and more commonly, the Philippines with HP, my mobile phone provider, and Vail Resorts among others. 

These decisions are obviously made to save huge amounts of money at the expense of pleasant and effective customer experience. What typically happens is that the hourly wage of customer service or customer support personnel hired in the Philippines by western companies varies depending on a number of factors, including the employee's experience, skills, and the company's budget. 

However, in general, the hourly wage in Philippine Peso ranges from ₱61 to ₱259 per hour ($1 to $4.50) that breaks-down as follow with experience: Entry-level: ₱61-₱99 ($1.00 to $1.75), Mid-level: ₱100-₱159 ($1.75 - $2.80) and Senior-level: ₱160-₱259 ($2.80 - $4.50). As we all know there are other factors like command of English, diction, adaptability, IQ and EQ that affect the performance. 

So, in the worst possible case, if an entry-level employee’s performance is terrible, and takes ten times the time to solve a problem, the cost per hour is still only $10 per hour. In all cases however, one needs to add the call center’s margin. Since productivity is generally bad, it contributes to customers’ huge wait time. 

Despite their (alleged) fluency in English, some Filipino call center agents have difficulty understanding and making themselves understood which further irritates an often dissatisfied caller that to make things worse has waited in queue forever. Further, cultural differences between the United States and the Philippines often lead to misunderstandings or miscommunications. I’m not even mentioning security concerns about information (credit cards, financial information) that could add to the pitfalls.

In summary, we ought to stay away from companies that save money on the backs of their customers that ultimately pay for the corporate cost-saving in terms of poor service and horrible amounts of time wasted!