We’re thrilled to announce a significant milestone in our journey at ACT: the opening of our second site in South Africa, Johannesburg, adding to our existing site in Durban. This expansion marks a strategic move to bolster our global outsourcing capabilities and better serve our valued clients worldwide.
Why South Africa?
In recent years, South Africa has emerged as a prime destination for outsourcing operations, offering a compelling mix of factors that align with our commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences. Nearshore Americas™ analysis highlights South Africa’s growing prominence in handling complex contact center operations, thanks to factors like labor costs, scalability, connectivity, and talent availability. Among the many factors making South Africa appealing include:
- English Proficiency: English an official language of South Africa, and their British-influenced accents are pleasing to native English speakers.
- Skilled Workforce: With a population of 62 million, Johannesburg boasts a large pool of skilled and multilingual professionals proficient in various languages, including English.
- Infrastructure: Johannesburg boasts modern infrastructure and telecommunications networks, facilitating seamless connectivity and efficient service delivery. This includes reliable internet connectivity, advanced technology infrastructure, and well-equipped office spaces.
- Education and Training: South Africa has a well-developed education system, with universities and colleges offering programs in business, communications, languages, and other relevant fields. The country spends a larger share of its wealth on the public funding of primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education than most OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) partner countries.
- Government Support: The South African government has implemented various initiatives to promote growth in the outsourcing industry, such as offering no-cost training and education in customer services for its citizens. Thanks to Government focus on the BPO industry, investments in education of employment candidates related to industry specific needs, qualified candidates are plentiful.
- Growing Economy: Johannesburg is the economic hub of South Africa and a key driver of the country’s economy. Its dynamic business environment, coupled with a growing middle class that has tripled in size over the past 30 years, presents opportunities to companies looking to outsource their operations.
Advantages of Outsourcing with ACT in South Africa
As a 100% employee-owned leader in Total Experience and customer care solutions, ACT has more than 27 years of experience helping our partners accelerate growth and strengthen brand loyalty by providing amazing experiences for every touchpoint of the customer journey. ACT’s commitment to exceptional execution is reflected in 98% green scorecards across our entire client portfolio in 2023, and remarkable average client tenure of 10+ years. e Looking forward, we expect to continue and expand upon that success in 2024 as we onboard new clients in our state-of-the-art South Africa contact centers.
As with any outsourcing destination offered by ACT, it comes with our proprietary Total Experience Formula™. Our approach is founded on a winning formula – that the best solutions integrate Employee Experience (EX) + Customer Experience (CX) + User Experience (UX) + Digital Experience (DX) + Multi-experience (MX) for an outstanding Total Experience (TX) overall. We offer a broad range of leading-edge technologies and custom solutions tailored to your business to make every customer connection count.
Just as we emphasized in our previous blog, selecting the right location for outsourcing plays a crucial role in the success of any program. South Africa, with its skilled workforce, robust infrastructure, and cultural affinity with Western markets, presents unique advantages for businesses looking to outsource their operations.
Empowering Complex Customer Interactions: With automation and AI now handling routine customer inquiries, those interactions that do ultimately reach a live agent are increasingly complex. Our continued expansion to South Africa enables us to better accommodate these complexities by leveraging the talent pool and technological infrastructure available in the region. Through our Total Experience Formula™, we orchestrate seamless interactions that prioritize human connection alongside automation, ensuring meaningful experiences that foster brand loyalty.
Driving Multichannel Engagement: Multichannel engagement is at the core of modern customer service strategies. With our presence in South Africa, we’re equipped to address the growing demand for cross-channel customer interactions, offering integrated solutions that streamline customer interactions across all touchpoints and elements of the customer journey. Our Total Experience Formula™ provides organizations with the insights and capabilities needed to navigate the complexities of multichannel engagement effectively.
Conclusion
The launch of our new site in Johannesburg, South Africa, represents a significant step forward in our mission to redefine outsourcing excellence. We invite you to explore the endless possibilities that this expansion brings and discover how ACT can empower your business to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.
ABOUT ACT: ACT was founded 27 years ago on a winning formula – that the best solutions integrate Employee Experience (EX) + Customer Experience (CX) + User Experience (UX) + Digital Experience (DX) + Multi-experience (MX) for an outstanding Total Experience (TX) overall. We call it the Total Experience Formula™. Today, many of the world’s leading brands and Fortune 50 trust ACT to be an extension of their business to unlock their ability to respond quickly to rapidly changing competitive, business and compliance environments, to anticipate and scale for future needs, to outmaneuver their competition, to lower operating costs, to improve efficiencies, to drive revenue and increase customer engagement.
As a 100% employee-owned company, we have placed Employee Experience at the center of our business strategy because we know that engaged employees ensure the best customer outcomes. As shareholders in the business, our Employee Owners have a personal interest in delivering value to our clients, and their motivations are uniquely aligned to our clients’ success. When clients first come to us, we consistently find it to be an opportunity to transform their CX design and outcomes with a Total Experience approach, starting at the Employee Experience level.
ACT offers the operational expertise, technologies and best practices that you expect from a world-class BPO, combined with the innovative solutions, flexibility and individual attention that you can only get from a 100% employee-owned company. Learn more at our website webstg.acttoday.com.
