When you are looking to select the right offshoring service provider to partner with, one of the main initial considerations is the type of work you will offshore.
So what gets offshored?
There are two main types of work that are offshored to the Philippines and they have very different needs both in terms of the physical premises to accommodate the type of work and the best approach to staff management. These work types are essentially voice and non-voice (or back office).
However, if you are looking to set up a large voice team then the issues to consider include:
- Location of facility – it may be better to have this team based outside of Manila as this will both reduce the costs and staff turnover. There are many opportunities for voice work in the capital city and it is definitely an employees market – moving to a regional area may tilt this market supply more in favour of the employer.
- Excellent IT facilities and ISPs – obviously this will form the backbone of your operation
- Training facilities – you will need dedicated areas for the ongoing training needs of your staff
If, on the other hand, you are looking to establish a non-voice back office operation, then probably the number one rule is to make sure that you pick a provider that does not offer voice operations or knows how to solidly handle the voice accounts from the non-voice. Some of the reasons include:
- The high staff turnover rates experienced by voice accounts undermines staff culture, morale and retention
- The physical set up for a voice account is different – smaller workstations, segregated areas, and large training rooms are just some of the requirements for a voice account which are significantly different to what is required for back office operations.
- Providers providing voice facilities will usually make most of their money from this as the accounts are often very large with hundreds of staff per client – as a result, small non-voice accounts are unlikely to receive the priority or service levels they expect.
