Ground-breaking South African blueprint for job creation to be replicated in SA townships and launch in the USA

Forget about offshoring – a novel new contact centre model making its debut in South Africa shows us the smart way to keep things local.

Software company ZaiLab has embarked on the expansion of its mass job-creation blueprint for the US contact center market. Its objective is to ensure that more local jobs are created rather than lost to offshoring.

‘Generally, I don’t believe in offshoring,’ says ZaiLab CEO and founder Nour Addine Ayyoub. ‘It’s a cost-saving exercise that takes away massive numbers of jobs that could be created at home. And the thing is, customers don’t like dealing with agents who don’t understand their culture. So that cost-saving ends up costing much more in the end.

‘The starting point to moving away from this thinking is changing the traditional way we view contact centers. Technology has given us the opportunity to change the way we do business and start investing in creating employment opportunities that boost our own economies. The question we need to be asking ourselves is: are we creating jobs or are we shipping them away?’

Ayyoub has been spearheading the establishment of a proof-of-concept contact center in Delft, a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Cape Town. His aim? To show that it makes more than financial sense to employ local agents. To prove that the contact center industry has progressed into an age that is not defined by a central brick-and-mortar building with thousands of agents – but by teams working from the comfort of their own homes.

The model is very simple. First, learner agents are trained in a cutting-edge facility in Delft using ZaiLab’s AI-boosted software. Once agents are ready for the workplace, they move out of the incubator to become an independent home agent who is self-sufficient and self-sustaining. Clients then subcontract work to the agents they want to work with.

In a striking turnaround from business as usual, clients are charged per transaction, not per seat – and agents get paid according to the number of transactions they handle. A dedicated team of QA staff (also working within ZaiLab’s integrated software ecosystem and also paid per transaction) make sure all the work is done to the highest standards.

In the end, clients end up saving a significant amount of money, and the agents get to avoid the cost and time involved in traveling to and from distant workplaces. This also makes contact center work accessible to stay-at-home moms and people with disabilities. Customers, meanwhile, benefit from dealing with somebody from their own country, somebody who understands the local way of doing things. It’s a clear win–win–win.

Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without a solid technological underpinning. That’s why ZaiLab’s software incorporates machine learning to achieve efficient customer–agent matching, irrespective of geographic location. Its team-leader tools also offer a clear window onto agent activity, meaning organisations can keep track of precisely what their workforce is doing at any time.

Moreover, ZaiLab’s novel usage-based pricing model means businesses of any size can access the software without huge capital outlay and the risk of long-term contracts. Operating costs can also be kept close to the bone, paving the way for companies to employ local agents.

‘Imagine if we could replicate this model in any rural area that is overpopulated and ridden with high unemployment,’ says Ayyoub. ‘This is direct competition to offshoring, and it is just as cost-effective. We’re incredibly excited about expanding this blueprint into the globally, because it’s an established market with all the necessary technological advances needed to make this work. We want to start conversations and partnerships in areas where we can prove this in the USA as we’re doing in South Africa.’

ZaiLab will launch its software in the USA during March, amid a roadshow that starts in New York and ends up at the Enterprise Connect expo in Orlando.

For more information visit www.zailab.com

For media enquiries contact Asonele Kotu at a[email protected]