SPEAKING 1
Inside Laos’ largest contact center By Latsamy Phonevilay
B
y now, most people are used to the idea that when we ring a large company, the call could be answered by one of many people. Gone is the old image of a single person sitting at a flashing switchboard. Nowadays, all over the world, there are rooms filled with rows of people murmuring in various languages into headsets. And now, Laos is no exception, with the country’s first dedicated call center now in full swing. Asean Contact Center, or ACC, is the brainchild of Canadian expat Kevyn McGraw, one of the many
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foreigners who fetch up in Laos and find themselves unable to leave. Originally from Montreal, McGraw had always wanted to live and work in Asia; after studying journalism and computer science at Concordia University, he travelled to Laos. After his first year here, he began working for Canadian software developer Aheeva, where he had family connections. “They assigned me to be their business development manager for Asia, with the plan for me to go back home in June,” he says. That was in 2013, and he is still here. “That plan didn't work,” he says, laughing. “I still really enjoyed living here, so I phoned up my boss in Montreal and said, ‘I'm not coming home’.”
He arranged a new contract that enabled him to stay in Vientiane, and in the meantime, the company’s chief executive in Canada asked him why he wasn’t selling any contracts in Laos. “I told him there were no contact centers in Laos. And he said, ‘Well, start one’,” he says. So, he did, organising a partnership with Lao IT company Datacom and Aheeva to create ACC. That was in 2014, and the company began with three staff and a handful of clients. Today, McGraw works alongside his wife Khammone; ACC employs 130 people and has more
I told him there were no contact centers in Laos. And he said, ‘Well, start one’.
