Difficulty of Adaptation

Times are changing. With the COVID-19 virus running rampant in the
Philippines, many economical sectors needed to adapt in order to
survive the economic recession it brought with it. The Call Centre
Industry is no exception. BPO companies (the main shareholders in
the sector) have tried to adapt their traditional way of operations for
the “new normal”, but even with these changes workers are still
being infected. For some companies, they were even forced to fire
employees in order to cut costs. (Michal Hrabi, 2020). In a sector that
“(g)enerate(s) around $25 billion a year in revenues, nearly a tenth of
the economy, and employ(s) around 1.3 million people…”(Cliff
Venzon, 2020), this affects many people, majority of which are the
breadwinners that risk their lives to support their families in these
hard times. If they don’t have a job, they will struggle to sustain
themselves during these hard times. However, the nature of a call
center agent’s work makes it hard for quick and easy adjustments.

It is a sector stereotyped to have workplaces centered on humans in

large offices separated by rows and rows of desks, which to some
extent is true (Reed, Parkin, Ruehl; 2020). These big spaces are
needed, in order to house the equipment needed for a safe and
secure Internet network and a stable computer for productivity (Reed,
Parkin, Ruehl; 2020). With the virus however, this kind of setting is
not possible. Employees are often speaking for long hours, in close
proximity with each other in an enclosed space. Without major
renovations to the layout of the offices (which given quarantine rules
is impossible), the environment puts the employees there at risk of
getting infected. This kind of setting is not transferable to households
either. Most Filipinos don’t have access to the equipment that they
have in the office nor do they have the space for such equipment to
be transferred to their home, in particular the secure wi-fi connection.
For Call Centre companies, it is a make or break scenario. If business
clients are not positive that your lines are secure, they are far less
inclined to use your services (Reed, Parkin, Ruehl; 2020).

Even with these hurdles, the industry’s’ entrepreneurs (such as

Facebook (Reed, Parkin, Ruehl; 2020)) have sought ways to bypass
these obstacles, to get production moving. This search led them
towards digitalizing the process, specifically using AI ChatBot (Michal
Hrabi, 2020). They can automate a lot of the repetitive tasks that call
center agents has to do every-day, such as reminding clients of their
payments, gathering data from customers for surveys and many
more, most of which is done digitally. They have a 24-hour response
schedule, thus there is no stop to their operations. To put into
perspective, if 5000 calls were done per day by around 50 agents,
automating those tasks can save around $4k, as stated by Michal
Hrabi in his article about these robots. The only reason why they
haven’t done so is due to the immense cost it would bring to
companies. Unfortunately, with the circumstances brought about by
the pandemic, digitalizing no longer seems like an enticing prospect
for the future, but a present necessity for their production, which
threatens thousands of workers of their own livelihood (Cliff Venzon,
2020).

The COVID-19 has forced progress in multiple sectors, in order to

adapt to current events. While innovation is good, by the end of the
day people are the ones being affected by these changes, people
with they’re own families to feed and sustain. Even though complete
automation can solve economic issues in the Call Centre Industry,
the cons of thousands of people losing their jobs is too heavy of a
downside to not consider, especially when as of June 2020 4.6 million
Filipinos are jobless (Melissa Lopez, 2020). Thus, there is a need to
re-evaluate our options and to find a proper solution to fix this
complicated problem.

Sources:
-Reed, Ruehl, Parkin; April 23 2020, “Coronavirus: will call centre workers lose
their voice to AI”, England, https://www.ft.com/content/990e89de-83e9-11ea-
b555-37a289098206
-Venzon, April 13 2020, “Coronavirus a threat to vital Philippine Centers”, Japan,
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Coronavirus-a-threat-to-vital-
Philippine-call-centers
-Hrabi, June 19 2020, “The New Normal for Call centers Unleashed by COVID-
19”, https://www.phonexia.com/en/blog/the-new-normal-for-call-centers-
unleashed-by-covid-19/
-Boulton, June 9 2020, “COVID-19 crisis accelerates rise of virtual call centers”,
https://www.cio.com/article/3561588/covid-19-crisis-accelerates-rise-of-virtual-
call-centers.html?upd=1602317310148
-Lopez : September 3, 2020-, “4.6M Filipinos jobless in July as unemployment
worsens in Metro Manila – PSA”, CNN Philippines
https://cnnphilippines.com/business/2020/9/3/PSA-July-unemployment-
figures.html?
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