Review of CXAP (Customer Xperience Association of the Philippines)

In May 2026, the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) officially rebranded as the Customer Xperience Association of the Philippines (CXAP). 

The rebrand reflects a formal repositioning of the Philippine industry — from traditional voice-based contact center work to a broader, AI-enabled, multi-channel customer experience (CX) sector that combines technology with human expertise.

What is CXAP?

The late nineties through the beginning of the new millennium saw the rise of the call center industry in the Philippines. The country now boasts of being one of the top 3 countries for foreign direct investment through contact center and back office operations.

The BPO industry contributed as much as 10% to the country’s current GDP. It’s a long way away from the early days of the industry when it accounted for only 0.075% for the year 2000.

Through all these years of growth, CCAP (Contact Center Association of the Philippines) has guided and supported the industry. The organization championed the Filipino talents who put the country in the map with their impeccable work ethic and genuine concern for customer relationship.

CXAP is the official industry organization for the Philippine customer experience sector. Its mission is to harness, harmonize, and galvanize the industry in support of the country’s position as the world’s leading destination for CX services. 

The organization champions Filipino CX professionals — the talent that built the country’s global reputation for service excellence — and drives the adoption of AI, digital tools, and best practices across its membership.

Under the CXAP banner, the organization continues to play the central role it held as CCAP: serving as the unified voice of the sector with government, advocating for policy and infrastructure that supports industry growth, and acting as the primary convener of industry events, training, and certification programs.

The 25-year-old organization, founded in 2001 by seven pioneer companies, now represents over 170 member companies that collectively account for nearly 85% of the Philippine contact center industry’s revenue and workforce.

The history of CXAP

The organization was established in October 2001 with only 7 founding member companies. CCAP is now composed of 90 members. These companies are located all over the Philippines, proving that expansion has reached the provinces as well. In total, CCAP membership represents 70% of the entire call center industry.

Main activities of CXAP

1. Expansion of Talent Supply

CXAP organizes regular skills training and offers certifications for career development. The organization emphasizes the importance of health and wellness along with values formation as key to employee retention.

While it’s still true that the BPO, especially call centers, is still one of the largest jobs-generating industries, only a few applicants are actually qualified. In a study conducted by Aspiring Minds, an Indian-based employability assessment firm, around 65% of college graduates in the country are not equipped with the proper skills to successfully work in their chosen profession.

To address this, CXAP works with CHED (Commission on Higher Education) and TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) to assess the curriculum and suggest improvements that are needed in the call center industry such as proficiency in English.

As for employees already working in the call center industry, CXAP conducts regular training to further improve and add valuable skills needed in call center offices. It also offers valuable insight that helps employers retain employees and keep them satisfied and motivated.

2. Government Partnership

As the official representative of the industry, CXAP works with the government to ensure a favorable business environment for employers. In some cases, they offer mediation between their members and government agencies for more efficient communication.

CXAP gives input on legislation, regulations, fiscal, and infrastructure issues that would affect the industry. With government partnership, the group can offer insights to their member companies that would help foreign businesses understand the country’s regulations and laws they have to follow.

3. Drive Innovation

One of the organization’s missions is to support and promote innovation through technology and development of best practices. Through trade shows and conferences, experts in the industry can share new knowledge and tools that will give the country the competitive advantage.

Change is inevitable. CXAP is always ready to steer the industry forward especially in terms of technology. One example is Verint’s Workforce Optimization Platform with voice analytics that was presented in their annual conference in 2013.

The application assists customer service representatives to assess the customer’s issues and formulate solutions for different scenarios. These types of applications are now implemented in call center operations.

4. Promote industry welfare

CXAP considers employees of member companies as valuable members of the organization, too. As such, the organization also seeks to look out for their welfare.

CXAP joins with government and academe to develop best practices that would promote the call center agent’s well being. The organization regularly commissions studies and surveys that would give members concrete data so they can formulate precise solutions for employee issues.

5. Market the Philippines

CXAP always seeks new markets that could benefit from what the country has to offer in terms of call center services. It participates in marketing and branding campaigns for the country as a viable BPO destination.

CXAP Events and Activities

One of the most anticipated annual events in the CXAP calendar is its Contact Islands flagship conference. It’s the best time to connect and form new networks with people from different sectors all striving to bring the call center industry back into the forefront of innovation.

CXAP believes in developing young leaders to ensure the future of the call center industry. Their annual eTL course is especially designed to hone and develop the leadership skills of call center supervisors. Unlike typical lecture-type classes, this course offers hands-on or on-the-job training. A Team Leader certificate is handed out after completion.

Data privacy is a prevalent issue in the industry. CXAP’s Data Privacy Asia-Manila conference is an opportunity to hear from cybersecurity experts and discuss solutions applicable to the industry.

CEO Forums is a gathering of company heads from CXAP membership roster. This event is a chance for in-depth discussions about challenges and opportunities faced by the industry.

The future for CXAP

CXAP is positioning the Philippine CX industry for what it calls “the next chapter” — a period defined less by call volume and cost arbitrage, and more by AI integration, multi-channel service delivery, and higher-value human work.

The numbers behind the optimism are solid. The Philippine contact center and business process management (CC-BPM) sector posted $33.9 billion in revenue in 2025, up 6.94% from $31.7 billion in 2024. 

CXAP projects the sector to grow another 5.31% to $35.7 billion in 2026, despite global headwinds including geopolitical tensions, policy shifts in Western markets, and AI-related workplace disruption. 

The segment now accounts for approximately 84% of the broader Philippine IT-BPM industry’s $40.3 billion in total revenue.

Employment is also still growing. The sector added more than 60,000 net new workers in 2025 — a 4% increase that brought the total workforce to 1.68 million employees, with CXAP forecasting 1.73 million by the end of 2026. 

That growth runs counter to the popular narrative that AI adoption is eliminating contact center jobs in the Philippines.

The CXAP 2026 Executive Survey, presented at Contact Islands 2026, helps explain why. More than half of member organizations are now in the moderate stage of AI adoption, and 43% are actively scaling AI initiatives. 

41% report achieving operational efficiency through AI integration. Generative AI is the most widely adopted technology in the sector, followed by predictive analytics, customer experience data tools, chatbots, agentic AI, and robotic process automation.

But the industry’s central message — and the reasoning behind the rebrand itself — is that AI is enhancing rather than replacing Filipino CX professionals. 

Roles like prompt engineering, AI training, and solutions architecture are absorbing the headcount that would otherwise be displaced from transactional call handling. The work is moving up the value chain, not disappearing.

“No matter how advanced technology becomes,” Enriquez said at Contact Islands 2026, “it is still human empathy, connection, and ingenuity that will continue to define exceptional customer experience.”

For CXAP, the rebrand is the formal acknowledgment that the work has already changed. The name now matches the industry it represents.