Frustrated with Philippine outsourcers. Need advice.

When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

You pay for what you get, try the USA or Canada for writers

Direct individual hiring usually means they can accept jobs from others too which could compromise their time management and your projects. If you hire from an agency, you can be sure that there is a supervisor looking over their shoulder that's making sure they get the job done.

I've found creating videos of you doing a particular task yourself (use jing and screencast.com) is often quicker and easier than trying to explain particular things by email.

Hey Sorry to hear about your experience.

However, I think there are several Filipino warriors here
offering their service.

Why not try MarxMelencio, Michael Lee, Giansim, or
AiraBongco.

Their service seems to get good reviews from some of the
warriors they've already served here.

I myself would apply just to let you see that some Filipinos
can be trusted to deliver for a long time.

It's just that I'm presently doing my own campaigns.

Hope you'll find someone to fit your needs soon.

Best,

I disagree that offshore contractors can't write good content. I have hired many writers in the past including some from the US with varying results. The best writer I have ever had is from the Philippines. He sends me work and I can c&p straight onto my site without having to edit...it's great

I think it is more about how much you are prepared to pay than which county you outsource to...

I have had similar problems with Virtual Assistants all over the world. Are you hiring an agency or an individual. When I use GAF I research the history of the person bidding on my jobs. A lot of agencies bid for my work and sometimes an individual will bed, but it is clear when you look at their history that it is more than one person.

I interview repeatedly looking for as many candidates as possible and give them trial assignments. Many people are looking to work today, get paid today and do not want long term employment even if they say that they do. Kind of like day laborers. I had to hire about 6 people before I found one that I liked and was willing to stick around the last time that I hired. She is from the Philippines and does excellent work. I also pay her well too.

Hi WealthWithin,

As I always say, outsourcing has always its pros and cons. I always suggest to hire an outsourcing companies instead of a freelancer.

Outsourcing companies has project manager and shift supervisor to ensure the qualities and productivity of the job. Staff leasing is better than freelance work because leased staff are permanent workers of our company and are easy to reach in case you need them. Freelancers do not have employers so they do as they please and sometimes cannot be contacted for various reasons.

I have sent you a PM, hope we could help and work something out.

Great case..!

If that was going well, why didn't you simply hire a project manager to handle your tasks?

When you hire someone on a more full-time basis, you can't just assume that "being sick" is an excuse. If you see a pattern working with that individual, then sure you might suspect it is just an excuse, but you should know that people in other countries have real life problems to deal with (just as you do) and you're probably not their top priority.

Did you also mention the deadline and what would happen if they didn't reach your target? Did you negotiate for a fixed price or an hour rate? It sounds to me that your tasks were small and easy to define, that's perfect for paying per delivery then, not per hour.

If I were you, I would find someone who already know what to do, not pay for their training - unless of course you need to train them to follow your "never published before" method to perform your task.

Why did you raise the hourly rate after 1 week of work? You should try to get as much value for your dollars. I'm not saying you should pay unfair or try to use someone who is in a bad position to negotiate, but unless he performed exceptionally well I don't see why you as the buyer should raise his hour rate.

I'm 100% sure you will find someone reliable!

Thanks for mentioning it! My experience is that the further away you are from your work force, the easier it gets to say "my philippino/indian/chinese guys" doesn't perform. Just a note... If your friend got fired because he was sleeping during his work hours, would you even consider the possibility that it was because he was "american/swedish/dutch"?

PS. If you want to know some more about outsourcing from "the other point of view" feel free to add me on Skype for a chat I've been buying and selling outsourced services for years now and have seen it from both sides. Still doing it!

My view is most of the time you'll get frustrated. Usually they will give their best initially and will slackened later on. Most of the Filipinos have long winded type of writing-(kind of beat around the bush) that is what I found out as I outsource my rewriting too as my English Sucks. No offence to any Filipinos here but they are bettor off doing other stuffs besides writing. You can still get native English speakers that can do the job in odesk as I have found a couple of them but obviously the rate is different unless you don't mind going for college students that needs some extra income.

Hmmmn... you may not have the most efficient manpower sourcing, recruitment and testing processes required to hire Filipino content writers?

Hmmmn... they may not be confident in working with you long term because you don't have a registered business in the country and may suddenly cut them loose when you feel like it?

Hmmmn... they may be looking for other opportunities which can not only augment the income they get from you but also provide them a long term solution to their finance and career goals?

Hmmmn... they might think and feel that they'd be better off looking for other opportunities which offer employee benefits, employee insurance, the security of constant long term work with a corporate ladder to climb, a competitive working environment offering life-work balanced systems, tools and resources which can improve them as professionals, their peers and seniors to look up to, rewards/incentives, fast promotions and salary raises for exceptional work, awards and recognition for constant exceptional work, extensive hands-on and on-the-job training sessions, monthly common company and employee goal development sessions, character formation and mindset developmental seminars, etc.?

Those are 4 hmmmns...

...I'd formulate solutions, implement them and study the results I get to improve it further.

It's constant work = I don't think there's an end-all-be-all solution for a 100% problem-free outsourcing venture, but you could get close to 100% I reckon, anywhere you outsource to, anytime too.

Hope this helps.

Dang! I think I should start my own outsourcing company and leverage all these publicity

I'm myself running an outsourcing company and providing business consultancy and development services.

I'm sorry but i've to agree with |Loren Woirhaye|
The guy is totally right, either you can save money or you can get quality work. These are two things you have to chose from.

We normally charge some extra bucks but delivering quality and consistent services. One more thing, we've stopped working with all these freelance sites ages ago, because its getting so much over populated that chances you can get a positive client/outsources is very low. Go for companies not for freelancers.

Hi guys

i hire workers all the time and have a lot of experience with people from odesk though i would never hire writers from there. I find that the writers from the warriors for hire section are ten times better.

Get some articles done from the warriors and then get repeat work from them instead have four or five of them and then when one drops out you have your backup plan in place.

I find that you can get really good workers on odesk but i very rarely use them for skilled jobs it is more for things like doing pauls backlink packets, posting on craigslist, social media tasks etc.

kind regards


sam
X

HI

What you say may be correct but not always. You have to try various countries and pay only when you are satisfied. Plus do not forget to ask for client references and old work that the vendor has done.

Wow lots of opinion, here, from my experience, you can get sloppy work done just about anywhere, I once hired a person from florida to do some work and it was not as good as what I got from other countries, so go figure, you just cant tell a book from its cover, LOL,

just kidding, but seriously, you can get bad work just about anywhere, geographically speaking offenders are lining up to show you just how bad they write, but you have to kiss a few frogs, as the saying goes...

Thanks for everyone who took the time to reply.


I will implement as much as I can and hopefully will be able to find few reliable outsourcers.

Think of it this way.

They struggle hard to write content for you for $2.40 per hour. It's not their native language so it's frustrating for them.

Someone else will pay them $2.10 an hour to do some copy and paste work they don't have to struggle with.

They don't get burned out and can work an extra 10 hours that week.

(Think about it - what would you do?)

Best way to find writers is to go with recommendations ... of if your a member of somewhere like the Wealthy affiliate other members actually can do the writing for you .. ever thought of them ?

Join WA for massive benefits and at $29 per month if you pay yearly it's a no-brainer. And yep I a proud member Hit me up in the members area if you ever get in and need a hand...

Working with people in the Philippines is a game of numbers. I have lived there for 3 years and I actually know the people who are working for me. Even so, it is a tough game to play. A lot of won't last beyond a couple of weeks, especially if you push them very hard. I've had people go AWOL after 2 hours in the office. After that, it's going to become a lot easier as you get to know them. When I've done outsourcing projects for people, it's all about surviving the 1st month. Once you have good guys working for you, you'll never regret it!

Some tips:

Explain things very carefully, put a video together to demo it & work out a way to see what's on their screen.
Find someone to work as someone to liaise between you and the guys.
Don't assume they understand what you want
Pay them a bonus on the work they produce in addition to their salary
Once you find a good person to work with, pay them good money
Break up big projects into little steps which you can monitor
Keep the work simple and repetitive to start off with


Hope that helps a bit.

Loren has kind of hit the nail on the head. It is all relative. The smaller the task the better. I have someone in the phiippines. She needs step by step instructions. Point here or there.

I actually write for companies myself and the reality is if you want half way decent content you will either have to look around and pay much higher prices or use a UK Aus US or Canadian writer.

Cheers
Denise

I agree that finding the right person takes TIME, and also you'll learn more about how to do effective hiring / management as you move forward. I blog about my outsourcing experiences - see my sig. Worth reading that stuff.

I also will confirm that power outages have been VERY frequent lately, since about February, but the guys who are good will to out of their way to communicate with you about these issues.

It happens everywhere. Look at McDonalds. Anyone here think that every minimum wager person they hire in the USA is a gem? No. They have high turnover. The key is the system. With the right system in place, you just keep turning people over until some stick.

If you're training system is solid, then you get a quick idea if the person is "worth it" or not. Some people will fail fast, others will fail when you upgrade them from a very simple task.

I've developed systems, and still continue to evolve them, that allow me to take on a different person each day if I had to.

The OP is talking more about people who get excited to get a job but then fade when they realize they are lazy or discover other opportunities. This can happen anywhere.

Should point out that I'm married to a Filipina, go to a church with 95% Filipinos and have lots of "Pinos" as friends. You could say that I experience the Philippines daily.

Oh, also, I am outsourcing a couple people now. When I went through an agency, I got better results so far. I'm staying away from the TONS of friends/relatives I have access to in the Philippines because I'd hate to fire them.

In closing, some people are going to be way, way better off just out-tasking stuff as needed.

Make sure you ALWAYS get a time sheet from your hourly employees. You should know how long it takes them to do any task on average so you can do a cost analysis and determine their effectiveness.

Good luck!

If I hired a full-time filipino article writer, how many words per day do you think is fair for their output?

just keep going through them untill you find your gem, you have to go through a boat load before you find 1 good one worth keeping forever

I have to say "power off in the city" is a real possibility in the Philippines.

Try to outsource to the USA instead.

Timo

Hi there

Have you tried Elance.com?

Excellent quality and very good value?

regards

Joe

The problem is a lot of people, including companies, simply perform well in the beginning but then start to slack off and neglect you. I would love to teach them some basic marketing principles as I find it very frustrating when I pay for something and the person just isn't that committed. It really does come back to everyday life as well.

How many times do you hear an employee say that he/she loves their job?

Rarely if ever.

They will definitely complain- that I can guarantee you. But you won't always hear a good thing about someone's job.

It also boils down to relationship marketing and what customers expect. With the invention of technology, people want things and they want it now! I know that I get impatient when I hire a writer myself but the fact remains that I have offered my writing services to people in the past when I have been bored and know exactly what people expect and don't want. Therefore I am more patient when dealing with freelancers and I keep up the communication loop. You learn all this in marketing in any case.

Communicate your ideas and offer constructive feedback when hiring a freelancer. You essentially form a relationship with that person. In order for the professional relationship to work and exist in the future, you will need to communicate. That is the gold nugget here- as without communication the writer may feel that you are not interested or that you might not pay them and that has entered my mind when I have written for other people in the past.

I would usually give someone 48 hours to respond to me. If they don't respond and come back a week later then it is unacceptable. People usually plan their days/weeks ahead and if you know you will be too busy to respond to them within the next two days, it is always advisable to state that in the beginning.

It's like being a company. You need to be transparent with your business and expectations and then people can decide if they want to continue or not. Always offer a trial period if you are unsure. Therefore you can end the working relationship you have with the writer at the end of the trial period and continue on to someone else that really wants your money.

As with any freelancer/employee... people lose interest or become dissatisfied with their contracts. It's up to you to see if you can offer something else as an incentive that doesn't have to be salary based. As an example: You could offer testimonials or a personal recommendation. That counts more for a freelancer these days as they try to get more projects, it becomes essential to have a fantastic reputation.

Well that is my two cents.

The only suggestion I can give is that you physically go to the Philippines.

Pre-qualify the interviewees from your home country. Then go to the Philippines to do face to face interviews.

This assumes your operations are "big time" enough to justify the expenses.

Avoid the big city Manila. Go to places like Iloilo, Cebu, and Davao.

I haven't outsourced yet, but everyone I hear promoting (professionally) Philippinos outsourcing clearly say to be prepared for delays as they have lots of long-term power outages and local emergencies (such as weather and utility problems) to deal with.

If your needs are time-sensitive, you need to always have a backup plan.

You can save lots of money by outsourcing overseas, but if there is a cost to delays, you need to consider that when you are ready to outsource.

I don't think this can help you as much as help someone reading this who might be considering outsourcing.

Hopefully, it can help someone.

Well my first suggestion is don't hire a freelancer for a full time job!

Its a totally different mindset.

Write for a few hours a day is totally different than writing all day every day.

What is working for me is to provide work that isn't writing all day everyday.

I can understand wanting to give your writer an idea of the number of words you want your content to be, but to try to translate that into so many words per day is a big leap.

These are people not machines !!

Mark Riddle

Well, I have bought the membership to Outsource Force by John Reese which explains these solutions in detail.

Since, I have went through the material. PM me with your contact information so we can discuss your problems more closely.

I have a team of 30 people working in an virtual environment, which includes:
Content Writers
Link Builders
Wordpress Coders
Data Entry
Social Media
And Software Running People (More of a Data Entry Guy Work)

Guys - just an update here ... the power seems to be more stable for most of my workers, but there are still power failures happening at least once or twice per week impacting their work schedules. They are just working around the blackouts, but sometimes they can't predict it. It was really bad a couple months ago and the power company published a rotation schedule for blackouts every day. It's getting better.

I was luck enough to have had a Filipino linkbuilder contact me from a post I made on Craigslist. That was 9 months ago and I am very pleased with his work as well as professional progression. I help him and he helps me. He now has valuable skills and I am hoping I don't lose him to a better offer. Because I offer him full time employment, I also get a better deal on his wages. We have worked together long enough now that he understands the tasks well enough where I don't have to provide the long details I once did. He has also expanded his knowledge of SEO - areas such as assessing keyword competitiveness, HTML/CSS/XML, and Wordpress.

My experience with oDesk has been hit and miss, so now I conduct intensive interviews over Instant Messaging in order to evaluate their knowledge base and willingness to learn. Like all geographies, you will find different personality types so I cannot put all freelancers in a box according to their region. But as Tyrone pointed our, Filipinos tend to work very hard and are loyal. I appreciate this and because they perform at competitive rates, I am able to provide them with a relaxed environment. This includes paid time off, excused absences, the opportunity to correct mistakes, and much valued time for study.

At one point, I was hard on my outsourced labor and looked at them in a very farmistic manner. This never really got me anywhere but frustrated and angry. When I made the choice to be more compassionate and understanding, the situations improved. Sometimes I give them time off and they refuse it! And send me reports on what they did with company accounts on their "time off". Most of the time, it is simple activity such as participating in the blogosphere and forums, interacting on social bookmarking and networking sites, and researching new tools that may be helpful with their work.

However, I feel that I've been very lucky in establishing these relationships with my Foreinds. You reap what you so and they understand that most people outsourcing their work are looking for cheap labor.

You get what you pay for lol. I do web development and you'd have no idea how many people outsource to india only to have to come to me to get the job done right.

If you want to hire a competitive worker, I suggest hiring only those with experience so it doesn't matter much to what area or nation they came from. What matters most is that they know what they are doing and you won't have a hard time explaining to them what to do. A lot of people are now outsourcing to india and philippines but english language from the philippines is much better than other asian countries since it has been incorporated to their educational curriculum since 1st grade to college.....

I agree with some of the people here - it doesn't really matter which nation they come from. There are good writers and there are bad writers. And the quality would most likely depend on how much you are willing to pay your writers. You pay $1.00/article - whether you hire an American, Canadian, Filipino, Malaysian (or wherever country you get your writers) you probably won't get a good quality article.

The number of articles you require may also be a factor - I've known some people hire writers and expect them to cough up 20 articles daily and expect quality work. They may need the money badly but..they're people too

I also think that if you are hiring writers it may be good to pay them per article and not by the hour. I write articles from time to time and I know some of you guys do it too (for your blogs or for article marketing or whatever) and there are times when I can write a 500 word article in less than 30 minutes other times it can take hours.

It would also depend on the expertise on the subject. It's easier to write when you know what you're talking about. If you're asking them to write a topic about something their not very familiar with, give them time to research about a topic first.

I am active Odesk provider and a buyer as well. I recently hired somebody from the Philippines as a technical assistant -- basic HTML, data entry, web research, content building and some basic blog writing.

I am now training her on customer service, CRM followup, and chasing marketing leads. And I always encourage her to learn, citing my own success as a freelancer to motivate her to work hard.

Being a freelancer myself, and coming originally from the Philippines, I do understand the situation back there for freelancers. I've previously hired two people from the Philippines on Odesk and they disappeared after a few days, citing poor conditions such as slow internet, outages, and finding permanent employment.

But the latest one I hired (who still works with me) has been a consistent performer. I'm lucky that she works nights, so I am able to work with her when it's daytime here in the East Coast.

So again, it doesn't matter if it's Odesk or the Philippines or any other country. Looking for the perfect outsource talent is like the search for American Idol. It takes a lot of investment in time and management.

I recommend that if you use Odesk and outsource writing and content building jobs, to be really consistent in following up the progress of work and use all available communication tools -- IM, Skype, screensharing -- to make sure all tasks and details are clear on both ends.

Also use agile techniques and hold regular meetings, asking them what they have done since your last meeting and what they aim to do after your meeting. Also have regular assessements, and do pay bonuses and raises to reward excellent performance.

Followup and constant communication is the key. It's easy for a team that don't see face to face to slacken if there is no consistent followup.

For writing jobs, I suggest you pay on a per-piece arrangement, or if you agree on an hourly arrangement, let the provider know how much time you have on budget for that particular article, so you don't overspend if it takes him/her three hours to write an article.

Aside from Odesk, you can also find good article writers on Elance, and they can be anywhere -- the Philippines, India, UK, Canada and the US.

Good luck on your outsourcing!

Either get full-time Americans living there or pay-per-task-done.

I had to plow through about 150 people to get only 3 that I use on every day basis right now, so keep on.

With any outsourced job you're not going to get that "perfect" employee right of the bat. It would be great if that were the case and I know that a good number of people who outsource have been lucky when they get the keeper their first time around.

But for the most part it's like being a judge in American Idol, as someone mentioned here earlier. From the number of possibilities you have to narrow it down to the one that you think will work for you.

Now whether it will or not is up to chance, your work demands and that person's work ethic.

For the most part Filipinos are hard workers but like everywhere else circumstances can affect that work ethic.

External circumstances can affect productivity like power outages, especially in summer although it has recently gotten much better. Back in the mid-90's power outages ran between 12-18 hours every other day, sometimes daily. So imagine outsourcing your work during those times.

Also internet access can be spotty at times and when you call it in they always say there is no service outage and make it like the fault is on your end.

And as for the payment I'm not well versed on that so I won't comment. But I will say that the way the economy here has been going it may not go far enough.

As for those that disappear after a few days or weeks be it physically or in work quality. The thing is many enter into this because they think it's the best thing and "easy" money. They heard it from friends who work on it so they think they can also do it. Many of them are often still in college or just graduated and need a job so this option seem good for them.

The thing is many of them don't realize the effort that's needed to produce something that is acceptable to their clients. Culture comes into play since they often don't write from the client's perspective.

Once they find out it's hard they simply disengage.

I'm not making excuses for my fellow countrymen (yes I'm from the Philippines) but that's often the situation.

I suggest working with the people you hire slowly and try to get a feel for what they can and can't do and whether or not they will give you quality work in the long term or just a flash in the pan.

Eventually you will find the one that works well with you and for your project.

Good luck and hope you find the one that's for keeps.

i think you just have to be patient and keep looking.

there are lots of good ones out there and i've worked with some of them.

it's all about good communication and creating a system that works for the both of you.

Hi all

Well it's seldom that I am posting here, as I am pretty new in business and I am still experiencing to make make a living out of IM. However this thread is something which is one of my close things to follow up. I am native Austrian so naturally my English is bad bad bad. Anyway I was looking around lately to get the problem of good content writing fixed. I attended some webinars lately having for subject the outsourcing project especially based on filippino writers. So when I read your opinions I find some point which is for sure something not related to any country. To build up a loyal and good staff that will fullfill the task you expect it needs more then just hire somebody. It is most likely anything else in life. Rinse and repeat. I think it is wrong to expect to hit the jackpot just by hiring someone. Every marketer knows ( or have some of you forgotten this already? how much error and trial it takes to build up your business.

So I guess the key is keep on going, no matter if it is online of offline.To hire workers is basically the same. It's a time consuming process.

( and guys sorry for I may spell wrong some things, ...lol..)

Rick

Even so, your generalization is fairly negligent.

If you want quality writers and the real deal then hire native English speaking writers - hiring anyone else is false economy!

A good native English speaking writer will cost between $0.015 and $0.05 per word. Worth every penny.

Did you try any Indian Outsourcing company from Mumbai or Bangalore yet?

Carry on and find someone else who can do a better job. Nothing wrong with phillipinos. We are all different some way or another. Good quality writers are all over the Warrior Forum.

Thanks everyone for their input.

I've been able to accomplish projects on vwrker and about 4 projects over $1,000 each.

I agree with the person that says interview alot.
The other person that said start small to test them out.
I agree with the person that said you can't think being sick is an excuse. You do have to show a pattern.

I'm a manager of training and have a small staff I manage. It is so hard to manage their different personalities and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

I prefer hiring people from my own country. That way I have the option of calling them up. People take hours, or even days, to reply to mails, but they always have their cell phones with them. If they don't answer their calls after a couple of times, you can know they're ignoring you, and you can move on from them. You can't have the same assurance with mails though.

Also, when you call up and actually talk with them, they understand the instructions better than sending them through mails. Try this out; this might help you.

I haven't had much luck with hiring Philippine writers either. The articles were very long-winded and they never seemed to get to the point. Of course, I've only tried about 5 or 6 from there, so maybe the 7th one would have been a gem.

About two years too late for this thread :rolleyes:.

Try to search on facebook you will find good people in to write content for you and do other tasks. I found one lady on facebook and still getting my all work done from her and their team. It works for me I can not promise it will do the same for you but it worth a try and be good and honest with them.

You get what you pay for.

The other thing is people don't like to be micro managed. I live in the Philippines and the one thing I notice is people try to micro manage people and they don't let them think on their own.

The one thing I learned in the start is filipino's like to be trusted and don't like people standing over their shoulder.

Example: If you try to make them use time doctor to monitor them and you're cheap and only paying them $200 then don't expect them to deliver.

They will look for another job and just move the mouse around to look busy.

Find one good person, pay them well, and let them do their thing.

Sorry to hear that. Many freelancers accepting many works from different clients that resulting delays and their work qualities compromise. This practice is not only in the Philippines but also other nationalities.

Better go to existing outsourcing companies. Staff are in house, they have supervisors to monitor their works.

Getting writers overseas can be a challenge. I use to use many writers from India...but I won't be doing that again. After a while of trying to work with them to get the job done right, it never worked out.

The Philippines and their content writers was a bit different though. At first, they had some trouble but I noticed that you just can't give up on them so fast. Sometimes they need guidance. So what I did was give them a few more chances and within time, the eventually started giving me quality content.

Case and point, it may take a while but give the writer some time to adjust to your needs.

-Omar

Two thumbs up:-)

The problem is that you are expecting too much for your money.

You cannot expect the same quality work from a filipino that you would get from a native English speaker.

The problem with outsourcing work to people from 3rd world countries is that they are unreliable, incompetent and cannot get the work done properly.

Their work ethic is just not the same and you cannot expect to get excellent quality by paying $1/hour.

Your best bet is to stop working with filipinos at all or give them special bonuses when completing a task. They might move their butt faster this way.

but not all Writers From Philippines Like That

You have to build in redundancy and source from many different sources. Also, build in some quality control.

i think for writing skills better to find someone with native language ...Canadian or states

As a business owner (And you need to start thinking like this) Would you hire kids or grown ups. Think about it. 3RD World country and you need to teach them how to speak Proper english. That is the frustration that most of us feel. Why would anybody want to do this? I would rather do it myself. Like the good old saying goes. Want something done right, do it yourself.

i think for writing skills better to find someone with native language ...Canadian or states

A long time ago (two years, six months and about seven days), the OP said:

Then, two years, six months and about seven days ago, a warrior who goes by my name shared this:

[time lapse effects here]
Now, the same warrior's back, saying the same thing: