Well, this is an Industry ever growing despite a decade of economic uncertainties, it's highly resilient left in any economic situations. And yes, it's so in Asian Countries that have a good education system and where English is widely spoken. As Yahoo's News just commented;
"As Companies look for ways to save on labor costs, more of them are off-shoring entry-level "knowledge worker" jobs such as customer service, collections, and data entry. Many of these jobs can be handled by countries like India, where English is widely spoken and the educational system is good. The trend is for English-speaking countries with low labor costs to pull these formerly lucrative jobs out of North America"
Yes, some western countries may find it hard to understand Asian's accent but then again this is where the industry's professionals come from and mind you, most of them are from professional backgrounds and it's a known fact that Asians tend to be more academically qualified compare to the west where population and the number of graduates are far from proportionate. Take the UK for example, universities are filled with Asians, Not the English, Not the Europeans.
I would say that minus their mother tongue accents, Asians have a reasonable command of English, infact many of them speak perfect English and don't be surprise that English is the first language of many Asians. For example, In Malaysia, English is the first or only language spoken in many families especially those of Indian, Chinese & Eurasian backgrounds. And if you look at India, literacy levels are rocket high where even their postmen are graduates!
Looking at the Philippines, many customer service professionals come from here, their accent maybe much stronger than Indians but they speak perfect English and again, literacy rate is very high.
Now, from a business perspective and the fact that the world has become extreamly globalized, yes, western companies would definately find asian countries more favourable for establishing their call centres. They would rather outsource it to asia than to have it run in their own countries where cost is beyond their affordability from a business perspective.
The Call Centre Industry is booming in Malaysia, every BPO is a multi million dollar generating business where numerous established western businesses have outsourced their call centres to. This industry also seems more favorable in the job market as it pays better than many other industries. From a western point of view, Asian countries especially Malaysia and India are seen as 'affordable & professional labour'. Infact, most qualified and professional customer service firms are based in Malaysia and India and some are even going on further to establish academies for learning and development in customer service due to the fact that it's not as simple as an operator's job, an operator does not handle calls, its the customer service consultants who handle calls.
Back in the older days, operators function as "call transfer", they place your call to the relevant person of authority or consultant but in today's modern world it's handled by an automated IVR or as Vodafone Australia calls it "Lara". Lara is an automated female voice that would transfer calls to the relevant customer service consultants & boy... many Australians get so frustrated with her but then again the poor girl has been fixed and compiled in favour of Vodafone! Hahaha!
