5 Key Takeaways Learned From the 2021 South Africa GBS | BPO Virtual Conference
Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2021 South Africa GBS | BPO Conference hosted by Business Process Enabling in South Africa (BPeSA).
The conference, held by BPESA in association with The South African Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, InvestSA and Harambee, was entirely virtual, allowing participants to join from anywhere in the world - a truly global gathering of like-minded individuals and business entities in the BPO field.
The theme of this year’s conference focused on identifying the pinnacle at which customer experience meets the human experience. We were treated to discussions, panels and workshops hosted by a variety of keynote local and international speakers who discussed relevant, topical issues affecting the BPO industry right now.
These issues included challenges and opportunities in the global servicing and digital customer experience (CX) era, navigating the new normal as a BPO player, particularly managing a hybrid team, and South Africa as the top global CX destination for 2021.
There were some fascinating insights shared from these discussions, some of which I’ll dive into below:
Customers no longer want to cater to the communication channels offered by businesses, they want businesses to cater to them.
Clients want to communicate with businesses and support agents on the communication channel they feel most comfortable with. With a range of competitive service providers at their fingertips, clients are simply going to migrate to competitors if one does not offer the engagement experience they are looking for.
For this reason, offering an omnichannel communication strategy to customers is essential for your success as a BPO company. Limiting yourself to only offering a handful of channels could impact the effectiveness of your inbound and outbound campaigns.
In addition, where businesses utilise AI in customer interaction, companies cannot afford to sacrifice empathy for convenience. Machine learning is key to efficiently managing and streamlining the customer experience, but at the end of the day customers still want a sense of empathy and human understanding in their interactions with a brand or business.
2. Video interaction is leading the way in customer engagement methods
Video interaction is fast becoming the preferred channel for meaningful customer engagement. We’re all operating at least semi-remotely these days whether for work or other purposes, and we don’t engage in a face-to-face manner like we used to, nor do we expect to.
Our connections have become almost entirely virtual and video is increasingly becoming a channel that everyone wants to engage on. It’s not hard to see why - it allows us to interact with each other in a more human way than voice calls can. Because of this, it’s becoming a more trusted engagement channel
Video allows users to be more attentive and present during a call, making them more invested and increasing the probability of a positive outcome. Customers also prefer video interaction when they’ve gone through previous channels with limited success in achieving their objective.
This again shows the innate trust in the power of video. Customers feel they’ll receive more help or reach a resolution through video-based assistance, highlighting the ever-important need for the human touch in customer engagement.
3.???Customer engagement effectiveness needs to be measured against customer satisfaction
The effectiveness of customer engagement methods and strategies need to be measured in relation to customer satisfaction.
BPO companies need to conduct constant customer satisfaction (CSAT) research, customer dissatisfaction (DSAT) research, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and Customer Effort Scores (CES) to identify areas where they’re succeeding in their customer engagement and areas where work needs to be done.
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These reviews should ideally be conducted by an external third party organization that will be able to provide an independent view of internal proceedings.
4.???BPO solutions actively need to work to be more inclusive
Approximately 0.9% of people in South Africa are visually impaired to some degree , while nearly 5% of South Africans experience hearing impairment . This represents a significant portion of the South African population who are not being adequately serviced by audio and visual-based BPO assistance and engagement methods.
More needs to be done to create more inclusive BPO services for hearing and visually impaired customers in need of services. As it stands, very few companies have put together strategies for accommodating this segment of the population, with little to no measurement metrics for success established either.
We as the larger BPO community can use this shortcoming as an opportunity to identify ways to better serve this segment of the market and ensure the total population is engaged and provided for.
5.???Customer service and customer experience are inextricably linked
BPO companies need to look closer at the relationship between customer service and customer experience. The customer service provided by a BPO company can make or break the customer’s perception of the entire organisation.
Providing exceptional customer service is key to providing the best possible customer experience. Traditionally, customer service has been reactive instead of proactive. It was used as a tool to resolve customer queries or complaints as quickly as possible, only servicing one part of the customer journey.
Customer service has evolved into more of a perpetual engagement with clients, from understanding their needs to providing a service, to continuous support and retention.
It’s an entire experience we provide across different stages of the customer lifecycle that reflects all aspects of an organisation - marketing, product, support, and engagement. All of these customer service touchpoints feed into the larger, ongoing customer experience.
South Africa as an emerging leading CX and BPO destination
Another exciting point of discussion was South Africa’s recent emergence as the top preferred location for offshore CX delivery in 2021. There are multiple reasons why South Africa is so well-positioned to address global BPO and offshoring needs.
With a population of 20 million English speaking citizens, South Africa has the workforce to take on large scale offshoring. Our neutral accents and close cultural affinity with English-speaking source markets like the U.K and the United States put us in a more favourable position compared to countries like India and The Philippines.
The cost for service delivery is approximately 65% lower in South Africa compared to other offshoring destinations. Combine that with our favourable time zone, warm disposition and our digital infrastructure that enables us to support an A to Z of global business services and it’s not hard at all to see why South Africa is only set to grow as the most popular and preferred BPO destination in the world.?
As South African BPO companies, we need to work together to ensure that we maintain and support the various national, provincial and private sector initiatives in maintaining South Africa’s position as a leading BPO destination – we need to talk in one voice, work in a consistent action, and produce a high level of service delivery to global clients.
Yusuf Aboojee – Group Head: 3SP – Transaction Capital Risk Services