Hosted contact centre solutions are helping to boost Cape Town’s prominence as a BPO offshoring destination for UK firms, says Jed Hewson, director of hosting provider 1Stream.

“Cape Town is already well established as a BPO destination for the Euro zone and the UK,” says Hewson. “Companies like Talk Talk, Budget, Teleperformance and Lufthansa all have major centres here, attracted by much lower costs than in the UK and a superb local customer service ethic. Cape Town’s people have an accent that’s acceptable in the UK and great familiarity with its culture.”

Hewson says the availability of hosted contact centre solutions is also becoming a strong driver of offshoring to Cape Town. “When companies set up offshore contact centres they want to focus on managing their people for great results, not on getting technology to work. We offer a complete telephony and software solution on a pay-per-use basis that dramatically lowers the costs and risks of setting up.”

A hosted solution, says Hewson, enables UK companies to set up offshore contact centres as soon as they can find and train staff. “The whole point of offshoring is to save costs, which means you want to minimise capital expenditure. The more you spend on technology, the less attractive the ROI. Using a hosted technology solution also means there’s no need to send key IT staff out to South Africa, or to hire expensive local resources.”

1Stream offers a proven hosted contact centre solution based on an Interactive Intelligence platform, including complete system management, proactive remote monitoring, and the services of certified engineers.