Call center industry generates around US$550 million a year

The contact center industry—referred to as call centers— in Peru it moves around US$550 million each year and generates more than 70,000 jobs, mainly young people in their first job and women, according to the Peruvian Association of Customer Experience (Apexo). The union maintains that the approval of the bill that prohibits spam calls will generate the loss of 20,000 jobs.

“This bill aimed at banning spam calls not only totally hurts the industry, but the consumer will lose their rights to freedom of information. Last year (by management of contact center advisors), 5 million Peruvians have been able to access the portability of their cell numbers, which shows that, thanks to our work, consumers can access better offers, services and benefits of telecommunication brands, as well as financial and insurance products, among others”, says Guy Fort, president of Apexo.

The guild recalls that in our country, until 2018, there was the Thank you, don’t insist registry, which allowed the user to sign up for a list so as not to receive unauthorized telemarketing calls. As in many countries in the region and Europe, in Peru This type of mechanism could also be established to promote freedom of information with regulationwithout the need to reach the ban.

“We agree with the regulation, we promote the existence of clear rules for the benefit of consumers, but we cannot accept the prohibition of calls, text messages to cell phones or massive electronic messages to promote their products and services. There are 20,000 jobs that are going to be lost immediately if the law is approved”, adds Fort.

Apexo points out that together with other entities they submitted other proposals that have not been taken into account, such as restoring the registry Thank you, do not insist, with a friendly registration procedure; establish hours to make calls from Monday to Friday from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm; regulate so that the name of the calling company appears and eliminate the use of robot calls for the peace of mind of users, among other things.

The Chamber of Commerce of Lima, for its part, stated that this legislative proposal will disproportionately affect the freedom of organization of companies, in relation to their promotional and advertising activities.

The data

• Apexo brings together 27 companies in the sector, which represent 80% of the contact center industry in terms of number of people and billing amount.
• This item provides formal job opportunities to more than 70,000 people, of which 70% are young students, for whom it means their first work experience, which trains and qualifies them for future jobs.