Pilipinas Teleserv on expansion mode

Pilipinas Teleserv Inc., the country’s first and only call center for document delivery, is embarking on an aggressive expansion program that will not only widen its range of services but establish its business presence in other markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

Raffy David, the company’s director for marketing and quality assurance, said they are currently in negotiations with several government agencies and private corporations for possible tie-ups in the call center service, now in use by the National Statistics Office (NSO) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

In both agencies, Teleserv has set up a 24-hour toll-free hotline (NSO:7371111; DFA:7371000) to allow the application of birth, death, marriage certificates and passport renewal through the phone, eliminating the need to personally line up and wait for the processing of these documents.

Although the service costs higher than what the agencies charge, the process has been a hit among applicants. David said they are now receiving an average of 3,000 calls daily for NSO applications, or a fourth of the normal volume while their DFA inquiries have reached half of the volume, at about 300 daily.

David added that due to the success of the scheme, the company has launched value-added services in the system. One of their test projects is the E-Trace tracking service that allows passport applicants to track the status of their applications using the mobile short messaging system (SMS) or text messaging.

"We wanted to further enhance our DFA Passport Direct Service by bringing it even closer to the public using a ubiquitous technology. With E-Trace, applicants can have the added assurance of knowing exactly where their passport is currently at and how soon they can expect to receive them," he said.

As part of a $3-million computer system enhancement project, E-Trace relies on the network of Aboitiz Express – Teleserv’s courier partner in the DFA service – with software giant Oracle as its backbone. Since the text-based service was launched in May, over 24,000 message inquiries have since been received.