Outsourcing Guides
South Africa offers much more than just customer service. Here are 5 top services to outsource to South Africa and how they can transform your business.
Outsourcing has traditionally been seen as a way to optimise costs across simple business functions such as customer support and call centres. By taking advantage of lower labour costs, businesses have saved millions over the years. However, faster digital communications technology and changing attitudes to the outsourcing industry mean this sector is opening up to other services and job functions. So if you want to optimise costs and supercharge your growth, here are five top services to outsource to South Africa.
1. Customer services
Customer services remain the most common service outsourced by companies in the UK, but it has always been controversial. Traditionally, large firms such as BT sought to transfer customer service operations, such as call centres, to countries with low wage costs, such as India or the Philippines.
While they saved money, they lost customer trust, with people becoming increasingly frustrated at hearing thick, unintelligible foreign accents on the end of the phone. Communication became increasingly difficult, with misunderstandings between callers and operators common.
However, the problem runs deeper than just the odd miscommunication. Outsourcing to a foreign country, especially one in which people have a poor command of English, sends a clear message to customers about how much you value them, namely, not at all.
It tells them you’d prefer to save money than ensure they receive the high-quality customer service they have come to expect. It tells them that they sit far down the pecking order, and you’ve made a calculated decision hoping that no matter how bad things get, customer inertia will keep them with you.
It’s a gamble that has come back to haunt many companies, with some firms choosing to relocate customer service operations back into the UK in the face of customer backlash.
Language is critical for customer service, even more so as customers become more demanding and are presented with growing choice. Good, clear communications with customers can help to build trust and foster ongoing relationships, which lead to better customer retention and, in the long run, higher revenues. Saving money by offshoring customer service operations to English-speaking countries quickly becomes a false economy.
South Africa, on the other hand, offers a different twist on customer service outsourcing. English is spoken fluently across the country, together with many other European and African languages. Operators can engage clearly and consistently with customers in their native languages.
South Africa’s culture is also familiar to most in the West, which can help to foster ongoing relationships. Deeper customer relationships also create opportunities to upsell to customers and open up new revenue streams.
The costs might be higher than in traditional outsourcing locations, but the superior levels of customer service quickly pay for themselves.
2. IT Support
Language skills also play a role in the growing IT support sector. Clear English skills combined with a healthy reserve of people with skills and experience in technology make South Africa ideal for IT support operations.
The rise of super-fast internet has been essential in enabling remotely based staff in South Africa to analyse computing problems with customers around the world in real time.
South Africa’s time zone matches up well with the working days in Europe, the UK and the Middle East, which means qualified support staff can be on hand at any time of the day.
For other countries with which they have a bigger time difference, South Africa still makes for a good out-of-hours operation delivering 24-hour IT support to businesses and individuals overnight, so no matter when their computers run into problems, they can speak to an expert in South Africa to help put it right.
3. Financial services
South Africa is earning a reputation for itself as a global financial hub. Faster communications enable it to offer a whole range of financial services to clients from across the world, from simple book–keeping to more advanced financial management.
Cloud computing and faster communications enable them to offer a much more comprehensive service than simple accounts, delivering advanced data insights that help you analyse your true financial position at a granular level.
Legal and financial services can also be offered for companies looking to expand into South Africa. Having people with dedicated expertise regarding the South African market can be invaluable in helping you keep accounts in order and optimising your tax requirements. Having experts who understand the system will help you avoid underpaying or even overpaying on the tax you should owe.
4. Software development
South Africa’s education system is churning out increasing numbers of skilled graduates in software development. With wage expectations of this young class of software professionals generally being much lower than their UK counterparts, this creates exciting outsourcing opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses that might otherwise struggle to attract top talent.
Digital transformation is putting pressure on businesses of all sizes to scale up their digital capacity. Increasingly complex IT projects require people with high levels of skills to ensure you can keep up with the competition.
However, talented software developers are in short supply and can charge a premium for their services. For companies of limited resources, the best option can be to look overseas in places such as South Africa.
Here you can find a rich reserve of highly capable software developers on either full-time or freelance contracts, willing to work at a more affordable price than their counterparts back home. It broadens the talent pool and enables you to embrace the opportunities of digital transformation at a fraction of the cost.
5. Marketing
Another growing sector that has struggled with language difficulties in the past is marketing. Companies have attempted to reduce costs in the past by outsourcing services such as content marketing, SEO or advertising to third countries. However, the quality of content has often been extremely poor.
South Africa offers talented marketing professionals offering a high degree of expertise across all areas of marketing. With English being spoken fluently, quality levels tend to be higher compared to other outsourcing destinations, and the quality is better.
Hiring marketing teams in South Africa is also a great option for any company looking to access the South African market. Moving into a new territory can be fraught with risks. The nuances of a new market such as South Africa can be highly complex, and even some of the world’s biggest names have floundered.
Having a local marketing team helps you understand if there is demand for your product or service in South Africa and, if so, how you can best adapt to the market conditions. They can help you understand local market conditions, consumer profiles and the competitive landscape.
Having people who understand the territory will help you to optimise your product offering to have the best possible chance of success.
Outsourcing in South Africa – the future
These are just some of the top services to outsource to South Africa. As the market evolves and communications open up, companies are finding new outsourcing opportunities across the board. The richness of talent on offer, the quality of the infrastructure and the quality of services available have transformed the landscape for outsourcing in South Africa. Today, it’s about much more than just saving money. It’s about opening up new opportunities, finding new talent and expanding your business in ways that were never possible before.
For more information, download our handy guide now.
