Critical factors need to be considered when evaluating any outsourcing vendor, says Xceed

When all other factors check during the most rigorous due diligence a client would carry for an outsourcing provider; culture and multilingual capability are often underestimated and in most cases undervalued.

Many of the outsourced programs awarded to different offshore destinations have fallen short in satisfying the cultural compatibility and multilingual capability elements needed to gain the targeted customer satisfaction scores. In many other cases the service had to reach a complete halt after serious glitches caused by cultural unawareness and linguistic issues.

The destination chosen should show an inclination towards the client culture and rather more to the type of offered service, like directory assistance for instance. The directory assistance requires deep knowledge of places inside the served country, in the exact same way locals are used to call those places.

Often, customer service requires a close conversation where an offshore agent commonly gets hit by very colloquial terms. An efficient call center provider would have armed his agents with the adequate culture knowledge and training to overcome these kind of situations.

Multilingualism is also a key factor, many leading outsourcing destinations, their value proposition abates when multilingual capabilities are demanded. For that reason the North African region emerged with a unique value proposition among key global tenants. It is a location that is able to provide multilingual services across verticals with a very high degree of cultural awareness.

Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt have all established contact center sector for years. Tunisia and Morocco, are still exclusively serving the French markets. As for Morocco, the existence of another European language is also valid. Spanish is served from Tangier north of Morocco at limited numbers. Egypt on the other hand is still perceived as an Anglophone destination, although, on the contrary it has a proven track record of serving most of the European languages to fortune 500 companies, at a very adequate level.

According to Ossama Nazmi, Vice President Marketing & Business Development at Xceed:

"The two strong evidences that any outsourcer should examine before committing to an outsourcing tenure are: multilingual capabilities and cultural affinity."

He further adds that "these factors establish the base for an ultimate experience for customers that are not only enjoying a "local-sound" but rather a high quality phone experience."