Help Desk Services in the Philippines

Let’s face it, the main reason companies nowadays outsource is to save on operational costs and to that end, companies have started to outsource both their core and non-core operations. Non-core operations including help desk services, customer service, and tech support are now being outsourced to offshore locations. Several offshore destinations have surfaced over the years, the Philippines and India emerging as two of the frontrunners in terms of providing high quality and specialized services. Help desk services in the Philippines and India has grown over the recent years and demand is still expected to grow in the coming months and years.

There are several types of help desk services in the Philippines, taking care of basic hardware and software troubleshooting to higher levels of support like remote assistance. Services include network and server support, along with desktop, laptop, and peripheral support for new users.

Why outsource help desk services in the Philippines?

Help desk in general is geared toward providing solutions to customers and in the case of companies with internal knowledge bases, employees as well. Filipinos, with their natural courteous and helpful natures, also have a strong affinity with Western cultures, making them ideal in providing support. Another good reason to get help desk services in the Philippines is that the country produces a large number of IT graduates a year and so companies can tap into this large and highly educated workforce.

Help desk services in the Philippines include chat, voice, and email support and thus applicants are tested in terms of both oral and written competencies. English is considered as the Philippines’ second language; so more or less, Filipinos are fluent in the language. Most call centers train their agents to speak with an American accent as well, while some just neutralize the accent.

Companies that offer help desk services in the Philippines provide a highly trained and educated workforce, ensuring that their clients get the best quality out of a relatively low cost.

Outsource or build offshore offices?

The choice between outsourcing from another company and setting up a remote office depends on the company itself. Bigger companies that need this kind of department but want to save on costs can build their own help desk services in the Philippines. Setting up a branch office that handles this non-core operation is cheaper than building a domestic office, though it is cheaper still to just outsource the labor from another company that specializes in providing tech and help desk services.

Small and medium enterprises or SMEs can take advantage of some providers of help desk services in the Philippines as some allow for providing limited support or handling a low volume of calls distributed among a few agents. This way, a smaller company can still capitalize on the value help desk services in the Philippines offers without being forced to take on more agents than they actually require. Companies can go either way, though they will need to consider their help desk needs so they can choose between the two accordingly.

With the right choices, companies can enjoy the value and cost effectiveness of getting help desk services in the Philippines – generating a win-win situation for both the service provider and the companies themselves.

Help Desk Services in the Philippines

The number of help desk service providers in the Philippines has rapidly grown over the last 5 years. The reason for the exponential growth of the help desk support industry in the Philippines is obvious. Expertise, Quality and Cost. The Philippines possesses a fairly large pool of highly qualified and skilled IT and Computer Science graduates that often have years of practical work experience even prior graduation. Help desk support agents in the Philippines have often worked for highly reputable companies such as IBM, Dell, Trend Micro, just to name a few, prior to landing jobs at call centers.

Help desk support agents with prior work experience usually tend to have a significantly shorter learning curve and are typically capable of meeting the services levels of Fortune 2000 corporations within a very short time frame. Above all, the Philippines is low labor cost destination that allows companies to hire skilled help desk support agents for a fraction of what companies would normally have to pay in the US or the UK.

The average help desk support agent in the Philippines is a IT or Computer Science graduate and usually possesses 1-2 years of work experience. Between 30-40% of all help desk support applicants have call center work experience. Some of the Philippine’s largest help desk providers are Dell, Microsoft and IBM. The three aforementioned captive operators (alone!) employ a combined workforce exceed 20,000 help desk support aqents in the Philippines. While during the early days almost all help desk services were provided by the world’s largest third party outsourcing providers such as TeleTech and Convergys.

Over the last few years a fairly large number of mid-sized help desk support players have successfully establish themselves in the market. The are quite a few advantages  for foreign based companies choosing to work with mid-sized help desk companies in the Philippines. For one, smaller companies often provide a significantly better account management then their larger counterparts especially for small to medium sized enterprises with fairly small outsourcing requirements for help desk support services (Less than 100 agents).  Smaller vendors are often also able to provide better, more customized help desk services than large help desk support outsourcing firms in the Philippines do.  Last but not least, medium-sized help desk support companies are often able to offer their service at rates that are 10-30% lower than the rates offered by Tier 1 services providers.

It is estimated that the number of help desk firms will continue to increase at double digit rates over the next years to come. Help desk outsourcing to the Philippines will continue to be a valid option for an ever-increasing number of companies in the US, the UK and Australia. Most especially for small-to-medium sized enterprises.