Village Connect
The country’s contact center and business process management (BPM) sector continues to evolve amid the emergence of new technologies, particularly Generative AI, which is quickly being incorporated into various tasks across the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) industry.
The Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) is confident that the sector could easily keep its position as being the world’s top provider of voice and business process outsourcing (BPO) services and the ‘heart of customer experience’ with the adoption of Generative AI, which critics assert could be a boon or a bane for the BPO industry.
“Generative AI can be used to automate and enhance various aspects of customer interactions. Some examples are chatbots and virtual assistants. There are automated email responses for faster adaptability. To illustrate, in the past, when an agent needed to respond to a customer’s call, he had to look at the CRM and backtrack or even go to the knowledge base. Now, these things are automated, further enhancing agent productivity,” said CCAP President Mickey Ocampo.
GENERATIVE AI IN CX
CCAP Managing Director Rosario Cajucom-Bradbury pointed out that the Generative AI has an impact on client business, the way services are delivered by the BPO Industry, and the corporate services of providers, namely HR, Finance, etc.
She cited the use of Generative AI Assist working alongside agents when handling calls increases their efficiency, productivity, and resolution in handling customer service. “Thus, the call agent is provided with the opportunity to have more focused active listening and genuine empathy rather than being pre-occupied in navigating the system for resolution. Filipinos’ innate trait on service orientation combined with the power of Generative AI enhances the employees experience at work that translates to an even more satisfying customer experience—therefore, helping the Philippines retain being the ‘heart of CX’ and at the same time, meeting or even exceeding growth targets,” Cajucom-Bradbury added.
Pushkar Misra, President & CEO at HGS (Hinduja Global Solutions) and CCAP Board Director further shared that Generative AI is actually creating more high-complex jobs. “It does not really make some tasks obsolete, but instead, it reinforces the need for upskilling and re-skilling of talents, which are already being done across the industry,” he said.
2028 IT-BPM ROADMAP
The country’s contact center sector has set an annual revenue target of $59 billion by 2028—about $49 billion of which is expected from CCAP-member companies. The sector has posted an actual revenue of $27 billion in 2022, which accounts for 84% of total revenue of the IT-BPM industry ($32 billion).
The aggressive target is part of the 2028 IT-BPM Roadmap, which was launched in the third quarter of 2022, coinciding with the start of the administration of President Ferdinand ‘Bong Bong’ Marcos Jr. It also sets a target of 2.5 million full-time employees (2.3 million to be accounted for by CCAP-member firms) and a 40% countryside expansion. In 2022, the contact center sector employed 1.4 million individuals, which is 87% of the 1.6 million total employment of the local IT-BPM industry.
Ocampo said the impact of Generative AI could reflect in the sector’s figures in two to four years. He also clarified that the emerging technology was not factored in when the IT-BPM Roadmap was set “because it surfaced just about seven months ago although AI has already been widely used across the industry.”
These and more interesting issues and developments would take the center stage in the upcoming Contact Islands Conference 2023. With the theme ‘The Philippines, the Heart of CX,’ the conference is set to once again facilitate a world-class delegate experience and an excellent venue for exchange of views, coaching, networking and benchmarking for the sector’s leaders and decision-makers.
CCAP’s annual Contact Islands Conference is set from July 26 to 28, 2023 in Dusit Thani Mactan in Lapu-Lapu City Cebu. For more information and inquiries, contact the CCAP Secretariat Office at +63 2 8843-0603 or visit https://ccap.ph/.
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