I often visit London and talk to companies in the UK that need help with their business processes and customer service, but I’m always surprised to hear just how supportive British executives are for BPOs in South Africa. I’ve written here in the past about why I think the potential for BPO in South Africa has been hyped, but it really intrigues me why UK executives continue to have this belief.
I started looking into the past 15 years of BPO activity to try getting a better idea of how this impression was created and I uncovered a perfect storm of activity that has shaped the BPO narrative.
Let me explain further. There were several important steps that I can summarize here:
South Africa invested early in building a brand. In the early 2010s the various regions stopped competing and started working together on a more general promotion of the entire nation. Millions of dollars was invested in creating a narrative that South Africa was the best cultural fit for outsourcing from the UK and this was happening as domestic contact centers faced very high attrition levels. It was the right message at the right time.
Big brands paved the way. Shop Direct, ASDA, John Lewis, Vodafone, EE, and various insurance companies. They all moved some projects into South Africa and this triggered a herd effect – if all these brands are going there then it must be where our business should go.
Empathy was a focus. Much of the South African promotion focused on soft skills – conversational English and a natural empathy with customers. British brands loved this because it felt like customer complaints could be handled more effectively with this approach – compared to India for example. South Africa built this reputation for empathy with very little hard evidence – just reputation.
Government subsidies. Special economic zones, wage subsidies, and training incentives all made it a great value option to build a BPO service in South Africa and savings were passed on to clients who saw stability and great value.
All the BPOs piled in. All the major international BPOs flooded into South Africa to take advantage of these benefits. This created a wave of sales teams that were constantly pushing and promoting South Africa relentlessly. They amplified the demand because they had empty seats that needed to be filled.
English language. Most executives in markets such as the UK will explore English-speaking destinations before other options, even if the alternative options are lower risk and closer to home.
Business trips. Executives never really admit this, but many will choose to outsource work to a place they love visiting – like Cape Town – rather than a more practical place that is better for their business. Tourist-friendly business destinations are easy to sell.
Skills Shortage. Many UK-based contact centers struggled in the period from 2015 to the pandemic. They had low employee engagement and high attrition and so the comparison with warm, friendly, empathetic agents in South Africa was exaggerated.
The story was a masterful example of marketing and investment that created a narrative around a destination that still prevails – especially in the UK – but doesn’t really stand up to detailed scrutiny.
South Africa has crime and safety issues, energy risks, political volatility, growing wage inflation, growing competition for experienced agents, and it is very far away from western Europe. A business trip can easily use most of a week.
Yet, the positive image lingers on. Executives overlook all these risks because they keep hearing the positive message from analysts, BPOs, and executives moving from one company to another and then investing again in South Africa.
South Africa’s states and regions used to compete for business – they wised up and realized that most executives can’t even name a state in South Africa. They joined forces. This has never happened in Europe so the nearshore community is fragmented and each country or region is promoting their own solution.
Just look at Eastern Europe – the European nearshore – and you can see how many places could be working together more effectively. I’d suggest Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, Greece, and Turkey. Imagine if this group of nations started promoting European nearshore as one combined powerhouse?
This lack of unified and regional promotion means that most B2B buyers in countries such as the UK have no way of understanding the strengths of Albania or Kosovo when compared to South Africa – they just have no information or awareness.
In fact, Albania has quickly become one of Europe’s most attractive CX and BPO destinations thanks to its combination of competitive cost structures, highly educated and multilingual talent, close cultural alignment with Western Europe, and geographic/time-zone proximity that makes real-time collaboration easy. Albania offers strong English, Italian, and German language capabilities with a young and growing workforce that can be scaled much faster than Western European markets can manage.
Albania is also politically stable, increasingly aligned with EU regulatory standards (and on the pathway to full EU membership), and supported by modern telecoms infrastructure – essential for reliable services. All these facts and statistics are less well known that the popular stories about other destinations though.
Every public speaker or politician will tell you that an emotional story beats a rational lecture filled with facts and data. If you tell a great story about a destination and tell it often enough, people start remembering this without ever questioning the underlying facts.
South Africa became top of mind for many European executives – but particularly in the UK – not because it really is the best place for BPO, but because they invested early in building the brand and they built some momentum.
My focus is Albania, but as I have described in this article, there are many locations within Europe that can challenge South Africa on both cost and quality of service. It’s time to start changing perceptions – there is a better option closer to home.
CC Photo by Tobias Reich