Analysis of South Africa as a BPO Delivery Location - Business Trust

APotential as“Onshore-Equivalent” forContact CentreServices6The profile of customer service delivered from South Africa does not lend itself tolowest-cost offshoring where metrics such as average handling time (AHT) ratherthan the quality of the customer experience are the main consideration for the clientorganisation.The type of international customer service being delivered from South Africa is bestsuited to organisations seeking high levels of customer experience through metricssuch as net promoter scores and high first contact resolution rates and those looking toresolve relatively complex customer queries.Amazon for example is ramping up its customer service from South Africa and isrecruiting “free-thinking” agents with the remit to focus on solving the customer’sproblem. The agents are not scripted, which is typical of South African contact centreservices, and are authorised to take whatever action they feel is appropriate to achieveresolution and a high level of customer experience.Accordingly, it is most appropriate for organisations to establish customer servicedelivery from South Africa where they are seeking an onshore level of customerexperience, either at a significantly lower cost point than is available onshore or tocomplement existing onshore capability.The benefits currently achieved by organisations using contact centre services forinternational customer service, typically to the UK and Australia, were stated to be, inorder of number of mentions:• Equal or better customer experience relative to onshore delivery• Cultural alignment with the UK and Australia• Cost savings (typically in the range 30% to 50%) compared to onshore servicedelivery from the UK and Australia• Lower levels of attrition than onshore service delivery, with one organisation citinglike-for-like attrition approximately 60% of onshore levels for the same service• Ease of management relative to other offshore locations. This manifests itself both interms of compatibility of time zones with the UK and Europe and ease of travel fromthe UK by overnight flights• Availability of agents high relative to equivalent availability in the UK and Australia