In recent years, the Philippines have taken the crown from India when it comes to the call center industry. Not only is it the world’s marketplace for call center outsourcing, it has a lively domestic call center industry as well. In 2012, the Philippines business process outsourcing industry, an umbrella under which call center work falls, grew by 22 percent from the previous year. Nearly 20 percent of the nation’s workforce works in the BPO industry. One of the reasons for this is the nation’s business-friendly policy and its extensive outreach to the global contact center industry.
Continuing on this theme, the Philippines Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT (News - Alert)), through its corporate enterprise arm PLDT ALPHA Enterprise, has launched what it’s calling the country's first cloud-based contact center service. The offering was created to benefit outsourcing operations and expanding enterprises in virtualizing communication operations.
The cloud-based CCaaS (contact center as a service) solution, which will be housed in PLDT's network of world-class data centers, will enable users to easily manage their applications through the hosted model. Charges are on a per-minute or per-use, per-application scheme, reducing operational and IT costs of businesses through the PLDT Cloud.
"PLDT has always been at the forefront of introducing global innovations in the country with our continuous infrastructure and core systems investments, ensuring our subscribers the benefits and services of a 'future-proof' network," said PLDT President and CEO Napoleon L. Nazareno in a statement.
Users of the service will have access to applications such as conversational and PCI (News - Alert)-compliant interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution (ACD) and reporting and call recording. Also available are remote office capabilities, agent performance management and professional services for a seamless integration of back-office applications from multiple platforms.
The goal is to provide cost efficiency, convenience and a rich feature set for contact centers sited in the Philippines, as well as the flexibility to expand and contract business with seasonal and other cyclical needs.
"PLDT Cloud CCaaS is a highly flexible solution that easily evolves to match the changing contact center needs of enterprises, and seamlessly fit into existing infrastructures," said PLDT EVP and EICB Head Ernesto R. Alberto.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson