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The Philippine call center industry grew in 2011, whereas many other industries can’t say they did. Why did call center do well? Simple – people realized that if you need something you need it. And if it’s genuinely useful to business, they’ll spend the money for it.

In fact, the country’s all-important call center industry saw growth of over 20 percent in 2011, on the back of health care and finance-related services expansions, according to industry journal BusinessWorld Online.

Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) Executive Director Jojo J. Uligan told BusinessWorld that an “upbeat outlook” for 2011 and 2012 is being retained, “given opportunities in English-speaking markets beyond the United States and a move toward knowledge-intensive services.”

That’s usually the terminology for seeking to expand into more Business Process Outsourcing services instead of simple call center work.

The CCAP’s performance, Uligan claimed, was supported by strong government and private sector partnerships in human resource development and promotions. With these, the group is increasing talent development efforts in line with a shift to higher value-added services and expansion to non-metropolitan areas.

In fact, Uligan was even more bullish on how the final numbers would fall. “Even if we don’t have the final numbers yet, we believe we’re going to surpass our projected load of 15-20% in 2011. We’ll probably end up at 21% even if the world economy isn’t doing as well.”

Virtual contact centers proved increasingly popular through 2011, as well, as the benefits they afford became more widely known. TMCnet reported that the call center outsourcing sector overall saw “substantial growth” in 2011, driven by the need for English-speaking centers beyond the United States as well as more knowledge-intensive services, and virtual contact centers’ compelling economic justification for providing those services.

Advances in virtualization continued, guaranteeing more interest in 2011. TMCnet recently reported that one company is embodying this trend as simplyCT, a provider of virtual contact center products that offers Unified Agent Communication SofTalk with built-in VoIP to handle all agent interactions, such as live chat, Web callback and email.

The callback feature is designed, company officials say, to help you “never miss a customer interaction,” since it lets agents postpone calls and receive a system prompt to call the customer back.

For more on simplyCT and its virtual contact center solution, click here.

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