So You Want to Work in a Call Center

Call centers they are a dime a dozen here in the Philippines.  Most people prefer to work in the call center industry or BPO, because of better salaries compare to other industries. 


The minimum wage in the Philippines since June 2016 is about Php 491/day or roughly Php 14,730 a month that already includes COLA or Cost of Living Allowance that is mandated by the government.  But if you apply and get accepted in a call center or BPO Industry you can get as low as Php 20,500 a month which includes a base salary of Php 16,000 a month plus Php 2,000 meal allowance plus Php 2.500 rice allowance (can be more depends on the company.  Not to mention cash incentives that the company may give to the employee depending on the account a part from the cast incentives there are gadgets, clothes and sometime motorcycles and cars. 

Compare that to any other Industries and you know it's a better deal.

So you like what you read and determined to join the BPO workforce.   All those postives also have negatives and I'm here to tell you what the negatives are to give you a better understanding of what you're getting yourself into.

1. You are most likely going to work nights.  Most BPO companies cater to US clients so you work during the night, because of the time difference.  For example.  you work at 7pm to 4am.  But in the US during Daylight Savings time is 7am to 4pm.

2. No more weekends.  Unless your really lucky your rest day will be Saturdays and Sundays, but if your not lucky it may end up Mondays and Tuesdays so you work during the weekends.  But if you  got hit badly by the unlucky truck your rest days will be the dreaded "split-offs" like Wednesday and Sundays.  Most BPO companies give their agents a chance to choose their schedules based on their performance.  So if you get in.  Work hard and work right.

3. Job Security. You can be a regular employee, no doubt about it.  But you have to understand that there are metrics to maintain for you to keep the job.  You have to maintain you Average handle time or AHT that the time you spend on the phone with the customer, then there's Customer satisfaction rating as some clients will ask the customer how you treated them during the call and if your in a sales account you have to hit the quota.  If you failed to hit any of them in you might not have a job anymore.

4. Stress; Yes Stress let me repeat that STRESS.  The job can be very stressful so always try to relax on your rest days.  Don't even think about the job if your not working.

It really isn't really that bad, once your used to it, everything should go smoothly.  Just remember being a call center agent is a REAL JOB.  Not a stepping stone to another industry. and definitely not something to joke about.  I know some people who doesn't take the job seriously and they don't come to work everyday or don't give a damn about their metrics.  So what they do is they hop from one call center. Which is very un-professional and frankly a waste of the BPO company's time, money and energy.

One last thing.  If you get the job.  Work right, Work hard and during your rest days PLAY HARD.