With over 15 years of experience in the BPO industry, Kristine Bondoc believes that despite the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the local BPO industry will continue to expand because of Filipinos’ culture of service.
“We have to think positive in these times. People are looking for a service that Filipinos can provide, which one of the main things is interacting with people with concern and empathy,” says Bondoc, vice president of operations at the Everise Philippines—a global, next-generation customer experience solutions and technology company.
“We strive to make the human element vital, and it is still the biggest element of the customer experience to this day. The customer experience industry is an exciting one that is growing exponentially, so if you want to make a change as I did, I encourage one to take the leap,” she added.
Bondoc had a five-year stint as a country manager of a BPO company in Jamaica before returning to the country to lead Everise Philippines. Working in the BPO industry for more than a decade, she is passionate about the evolving industry that helps provide jobs, grow future leaders, promote diversity, invest in development, and aid partners in reaching their business goals.
Currently, Everise Philippines employs more than 3,000 customer service champions. It also recently announced its move to bolster its workforce to service the growing demand from existing clients for additional services, including managing digital customer support channels.
As a technology-enabled outsourcing firm, Everise dominates in transforming healthcare, eCommerce, and technology experiences globally. It was established in 2016 by its founder and CEO, Sudhir Agarwal, with a vision to disrupt the BPO industry and pave the way for a tech-enabled, people-first customer experience. The global company’s unique approach combines customer and technical support services with AI, robotic process automation, analytics, and secure cloud-based technology. Some of the world’s most loved brands have products and services perfected, protected, supported, and sold by Everise.
Bondoc recalls she had the honor of working with a few Everise executives, including now president Dave Palmer in previous roles at eTelecare. In June 2020, she was offered a role in Malaysia, and later on, she applied for a position in the US but was asked to return home to help Everise accelerate growth in the Philippines, which she gladly accepted.
“As fate may have it, I was brought back home after my project stints in Malaysia, Japan, US, and Singapore; all from my living room in Jamaica because I could not travel yet during the pandemic. Everise has a corporate vision of rapidly accelerating our growth in the Philippines – a vision that I am excited about because we are creating great jobs for Filipinos of all walks of life who will be supporting innovative brands that millions of people use around the world,” she shares.
According to Bondoc, Everise was able to cope with the new normal through forging ahead with a blended model of work-at-home and brick-and-mortar for their people to support the global demand they are receiving from clients requesting their successful flexshoring model.
“Adapting to the pandemic has been tough, but we had programs and systems in place prior that enabled us to move the majority of our people to a safe, remote working environment. A major contributing factor in our success is “Flexshoring”— a blend of work-at-home and centralized teams on a global scale, offering flexibility to delivery on-, near-, and offshore customer experience to combat the threats posed by viral, cultural, and climatic disruption and mitigate uncertainties. This model has helped navigate the learning curve of managing expansions and our workforce during the pandemic and has been proven successful, and many companies like that they can choose what percentage of people and where they can support customers,” she explains.
She also added that despite many companies struggling through the challenges that arose from the last 19 months, Everise has thrived. Everise adjusted quickly because they already had 10% of their Champions in a work-at-home model since 2018.
“We just had to scale quickly. When the pandemic hit, our leaders and teams went the extra mile and made the transition of moving 95% of our global staff to a safe environment in a matter of weeks while continuing to service our partners with no interruptions. With Everise’s tech stack, our Champions and partners felt confident with operations in a home environment. Because of this, we gained more business from current partners, as well as new ones, and have expanded because we were prepared and trusted, while much of our competition were still struggling to secure their people in a remote work environment,” she says.
“Another finding I’m seeing is that people thought the pandemic was temporary, so they started with setting up a workspace on their dining table, for example. But now I’m seeing they have invested in a dedicated workspace which shows that they are accepting this is the new normal for a while,” adds Bondoc.
Bondoc also mentioned that Everise Philippines continues to hire Filipinos to support expansion. “Believe it or not, there is still a demand in the market, in particular from healthcare and technology companies, and they are looking for partners who can help them economically grow their businesses in a volatile market. As a result, there is tremendous interest in nearshore and offshore customer support services, and that drives our expansion,” she says.
“Our client testimonials and high net promoter scores have proven Everise can deliver great customer experiences with a personal touch. We are not ‘just another BPO’, and we are truly a digital experience company. We are driven by designing and implementing world-class customer experiences; and, we invest deeply in client relationships to improve and enhance our processes, technology, and people-first philosophy. Our ability to be agile with our clients and teams in this fast-changing pace of the automation and information age is what sets us apart,” she added.
In terms of their recruitment process, Bondoc says Everise conducts psychographic hiring, which means it actively hires people who are the right fit and bases its decisions on their skill set, values, attitudes, and aspirations, which align with the realities of working remotely.
“We are expanding our recruitment efforts in partnering with organizations that can bring diverse individuals to our pool of talent. Everise actively hires people based on their individual preferences, which helps us widen the scope of candidates and eliminates biases due to demographical restrictions that might normally happen in a traditional hiring model. We have such a diverse range of champions, and psychographic hiring does not discriminate. If a candidate matches the skills, values, attitudes, and behaviors to what Everise is looking for, then we will hire them,” she says.
Bondoc started her career as a banker, having studied Economics and working for an investment company when she was introduced to the BPO industry and was encouraged to make the jump and see “what real intense, tech-driven BPO work” was all about.
“I was young and intrigued, so I took the leap in the early 2000s. I worked my way through the ranks and found that I loved the people aspect of the industry, and the fact that I get to deal with different sectors keeps things interesting. I dedicated the first three years to understanding the processes and operations side, which came with humility. I love what I do and am passionate about it. It is not a job for me, but it is a pleasure,” she says.
From then on, Bondoc saw how the BPO sector evolved. “Technology is all around us, and the changes in the economy are driven by innovation and what customers expect at the end of the day. They expect numerous supports through channels via chat, video, AI, and others. Everise’s digital outsourcing system develops innovative solutions to speed up our partner’s growth and helps develop critical abilities to increase the human capital potential. In short, we help our partners grow, we grow, which in turn grows the Philippine BPO sector,” she shares.
“Our demand is driven by the demand of our client’s customers and how customers are interacting with them. Our digital outsourcing system helps to develop innovative solutions which not only speed up our partners’ growth but also help to develop critical abilities that increase the potential of our human capital,” she adds.
