Leveraging Latin America’s Contact Center Talent Through Nearshore Outsourcing

Originally published in Gritdaily.

Although more aspects of customer service are being handed over to automation tools such as chatbots, contact centers remain an essential part of the experience. But according to Amalga Group CEO Jens Erik Gould, building a full-service contact center in-house can be quite expensive and time consuming, drawing resources away from a company’s core offerings. For this reason, many U.S. companies today are leveraging Latin America’s contact center talent through nearshore outsourcing.

By working with trusted Latin American talent, your company can gain access to skilled professionals while enjoying the benefits of proximity and cultural alignment. “Contact centers typically aren’t the bread-and-butter of what makes a company great,” says Jens Erik Gould. “By nearshore outsourcing this department, you can free up your in-house resources to focus on activities that help your company grow.”

Here are some of the main benefits of outsourcing your contact center to Latin America.

Cost Savings

One of the main reasons companies nearshore outsource their contact centers is because of the cost savings it can bring them. After all, it can be quite difficult to carve out a budget for building an in-house department—especially for small and medium-sized companies.

Contact centers require offices with a large footprint. And as any business owner knows, real estate is a hefty line item on expense reports.

By nearshore outsourcing this department, you won’t have to shoulder the burden of costs related to rent, real estate insurance, or office supplies. You also won’t need to worry about outfitting the building with desks and chairs or providing agents with all the technology needed to run a contact center these days. “There are so many expenses that go along with operating an in-house contact center,” says Jens Erik Gould. “With nearshore outsourcing, though, you are passing that burden onto the Latin American companies with which you partner.”

What’s more, you can gain significant payroll-related savings based on the difference in expected salary for U.S. workers compared to those from Latin America.

Proximity

A big concern when outsourcing contact centers? Where that talent is located in the world compared to where the majority of your customers are located. If you were to outsource to India, the Philippines, or Eastern Europe, for instance, there could be a significant time difference between your in-house teams, your customers, and your contact center talent. When you outsource to Latin America, you’ll be leveraging talent that’s located in similar time zones as where your business operates and your customers live.

Jens Erik Gould asserts that this is a huge advantage, as it allows your contact center to operate at full capacity when it is busiest. In addition, being close to where the contact center is located provides leaders the opportunity to travel to Latin America and meet the talent they’ve employed. This helps to improve morale—and it allows you to analyze the inner workings of the organization.

Top Talent

Latin American markets offer top talent in the contact center sector. Much of this has to do with high levels of English proficiency, strong cultural affinity with the U.S., and increased investment in education in the region, says Jens Erik Gould.

The Latin American labor market is relatively stable when it comes to this sector, too, meaning you don’t have to worry about the ebbs and flows of the U.S. labor market.