Ryan Strategic Advisory | Setting up a new CX location

Peter Ryan compares emerging and saturated locations vs mature and scalable destinations when looking to set up a new customer experience location offshore.

Video transcript

Hi, I’m Peter Ryan, Principal Analyst at Ryan Strategic Advisory. We are a full-service market research and advisory firm based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specialicing in the business process outsourcing (BPO) and customer experience (CX) space.

A common question I get from clients is about where to establish a new customer experience facility. Should they opt for a location that is more emerging and greenfield, a destination that might be new on the block but hasn’t proven itself? Or should they choose a location that’s more tested and tried, a spot that has more experience in fulfilling customer experience requirements over an extended period for end-users in key demand markets?

It all depends on what an enterprise is looking for when engaging with an outsourcing partner. In my opinion, there is a lot to be said for choosing a destination that has been around the block, a location that has proven its worth as a destination of choice where customer experience management can be fulfilled in a confident and consistent manner.

In the world of customer management offshoring, many locations have come and gone. Over the 20 years I’ve been working in the CX advisory space, many have been the flavor of the month for a very short amount of time and have disappeared for various reasons, such as oversaturation or a lack of labor capacity with the required skills.

However, South Africa has been one of the most consistent providers. As an English language delivery point, South Africa has been prominent since the early 2000s. Over the past 20 years, it has emerged as a location where customer experience management delivery can be executed for some of the world’s biggest brands, catering to consumers from the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia.

There are many reasons for this consistency, but I attribute it to South Africa’s developed CX ecosystem, which focuses on providing consistent, high-quality levels of support. Unlike many other locations that quickly become saturated leading to high cost escalations, South Africa offers numerous cities for delivering customer experience management for overseas consumers. This is crucial for maintaining a balanced level of quality and controlling cost inflation, which is a significant factor in ensuring the best CX outcomes.

South Africa’s talent level has consistently been one of the biggest draws to the country. Many of the world’s biggest brands across various industries engage with outsourcers in South Africa, achieving consistent, high-quality outcomes.

Don’t just take my word for it; consider the results from the Ryan Strategic Advisory Front Office CX Omnibus Survey over the past two years. In 2021 and 2022, we spoke to some of the biggest names in enterprise CX decision-making from North America, Western Europe, and Australia. For two consecutive years, South Africa has either been the most favored offshore delivery location for CX services or tied for number one.

This legacy underscores South Africa’s role as a consistent, long-term player with tremendous availability of resources and quality for new clients. Looking at the enthusiasm from the agent community and the labor pool eager to become contact center agents, along with the outsourcers and enterprises working with BPOs on the ground, South Africa is poised for many more great decades to come.