The BPO market is huge. In the United States alone, the outsourcing of business processes is worth $57 billion.
And there are plenty of reasons for it. As technology advances and global business becomes more easily accessible, the advantages of using BPO services become easier to acquire.
Negative perceptions like many other sectors, exist about BPO providers and the sector as a whole. However if these claims were true, well-known brands would not be using BPO services.
We’ll debunk the most common misconceptions about business process outsourcing and offer you an insight of its many advantages in this post.
This is a common belief that may prevent businesses who could benefit from such a service, outsourcing their projects.
With Consumer Links, this is not the case. Our HQ operations are UK based, and our South Africa contact centre is managed by UK director who is permanently residing in our Durban office.
This means we can be in your UK offices to deliver and assist you with understanding any reports, as well as hear any suggestions for improvement that you may have.
We also give you and your team full administrative access so you have real time monitoring and performance management. Our customer service management team can conduct daily, weekly, or monthly reporting meetings with your staff to ensure that you are as well-informed as possible.
With this, you can exercise full control of the project as if we were an extension of your own in-house team.
In short, no. There is often an assumption when outsourcing that the results or service delivered are inferior than if managed in-house. This statement is amplified if you are outsourcing your call centre services overseas.
The truth is it can be the opposite.
Our South African contact centres are managed by an experienced call centre director from our UK operation who is permanently based in Durban. This ensures that there is a continual high standard of service and that our team are always up to date with the latest industry developments, technologies and trends.
We also invest in regular training for our staff so they can provide an excellent level of service that is on par or exceeds what you would expect from your own in-house team.
By being able to dedicate to just one aspect of a large business, our team have become experts in delivering a service that your business needs.
Not only that, we can provide call centre outsourcing services at a more cost effective budget than our counterparts in UK call centres.
In some cases, it may be more difficult to understand accents or cultural differences.
However, if you use call centre services in contact centres such as our own in Durban, you can eradicate this issues.
Why is this?
South Africa has become a popular destination for an outsourced call centre operation due to it’s neutral accent. This means that your customers are more likely to understand what is being said to them and vice versa, our team will be able to understand any issues or problems your customers may have.
A lot of businesses believe that collaboration is difficult when operating across different time zones.
However, different time zones can create powerful options too. By operating in different time zones you can have your business active for more hours each day.
However, in our South African call centre we are only 1-2 hours ahead (Daylight saving dependant) of the UK.
This makes collaboration, meetings and our management easily accessible for you and your team.
This is a common myth that needs debunking.
At Consumer Links, the employees working in our South African contact centre are skilled, professional and have extensive experience working within the customer service and call centre industry.
There is a large talent pool within the Durban area that allow us to choose only the best of the best to work on our client projects.
We also invest in regular training for our staff so they can provide an excellent level of service that is on par or exceeds what you would expect from your own in-house team.
It is an important factor to consider for any business. And with outsourcing to any business whether UK based or offshore, when data is handled by a third party apprehension will always be present.
As a UK based company, we are governed by UK law and abide to all data protection protocols across all our locations. This includes abiding by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
We also have a strict internal policy in place to protect your data. Only employees who need access to your data will have it and it is stored securely on our network.
Although becoming more cost effective as a business is a driving factor for some of our clients, it is not the only driving factor.
Another driving factor for our clients is it allows them to focus on their business goals. By utilising our contact centre operations, we can manage their inbound and outbound customer calls whilst they concentrate on the areas of the business they do best.
Another obvious reason is it clears capacity issues. Hiring staff can be a time-intensive exercise, and especially difficult whilst trying to cope with growing business demands.
Cultural differences can manifest themselves in a variety of ways, and when you outsource elements of your business to other countries and regions, it has long been considered a major problem when outsourcing.
However, there is a widespread notion that this rule applies only to outsourcing. The reality is that both internal and external operations will experience the acclimatisation stage as new teams and workers are introduced.
Whether it’s corporate culture or even regional cultural differences you’re trying to educate your chosen outsourcing partner about, this shouldn’t be considered a deal breaker. With the appropriate BPO partner, the cultural barrier can be lowered to a minor consideration.
There are a lot of myths surrounding business process outsourcing (BPO). However, as we have seen, many of these myths are unfounded and should not be used as a reason to outsource to a BPO partner.
And once the BPO myths have been debunked, there are several advantages to outsourcing to South Africa than other countries such as the Philippines.
At Consumer Links, we have years of experience in delivering high-quality BPO solutions to businesses across a variety of industries. From Ecommerce and retail, to financial and legal services, we have an experienced team on hand capable of managing your outsourced projects.
If you wish to discuss your specific requirements, please contact us today and we would love to show you how we can help.
The Old School House
Manchester Road
Carrington
Manchester
M31 4UG
220 Flanders Drive
Mount Edgecombe
Kwa-Zulu-Natal
South Africa
4302