Outsourced call centers and English in the Philippines

ABSTRACT: The influx of outsourced call centers from the United States to the Philippines since the late 1990s has paved the way for the creation of thousands of jobs for Filipino professionals who are able to communicate in English and provide telephone‐based customer services to American customers. The Philippines has become one of the major centers for outsourcing because of its tradition of bilingual education, affinity to the American culture, and cheap labor market. This study examined the effectiveness of micro language policies of a US‐owned call center relative to the variety of English spoken in the Philippines in preparing Filipino professionals to work in outsourced call centers. The relationship between ESL proficiency and success in delivery of support was also analyzed by comparing English communication and transaction monitoring scores of Filipino customer service representatives (N = 74) collected for over a period of seven months in 2003–4. Although the initial English scores of participants were below the expected level of proficiency set by the call center company, assessment data indicated that with proper training and effective language‐based programs, the participants exhibited improvement in English during transactions. ESL proficiency, however, only accounted for 10 per cent of the variability in the transaction monitoring scores of the participants.