Costa Rica Call Center Blog

News reports say that Indian outsourcing giants, Infosys, TCS and Wipro are likely to fall prey to nearshore rivals, like Israel-based Ness Technologies, Softtek of Mexico, and CPM Braxis of Brazil.

Major outsourcers like Citibank and GEO are now leaning toward nearshore, specialized vendors instead of offshoring work to distant locations like India. These clients are now looking at emerging outsourcing centers like Latin America that is closer to home as favored destinations for outsourcing, reports the Times of India.

Jimit Arora, Research director at Everest Group was quoted as saying, “Some customers having 70-80 per cent of their offshore resources in India are realizing that they need to look at the third category of suppliers that are local and niche,” in an online report by SourcingFocus.com.

In order to contain nearshoring major IT service suppliers like TCS, Wipro and India are expanding their own units and staff in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe so they can tap into this new trend.  According to experts in the industry, the recession is likely to take shape into a recovery phase later in the year, and outsourcing firms are getting ready for a growth in the sector. Hence, the scurry in these emerging markets is a last ditch attempt to gain market share in the wake of intense competition in global outsourcing. Incidentally, Indian appears to be losing its stronghold in the outsourcing sector with several new regions like Mexico and China offering similar cost savings and convenience.

An official at Wipro, Suresh Vaswani, explained that the Indian outsourcing giant is seeking to widen its reach into niche markets,  such as  China and Europe. China offers a superior cost advantage to India and other locations, but leaves some firms dissatisfied with the level of skills in the country. Some companies see the weaker skills in emerging locations as eventually costing the company more, since most of the work that is outsourced in IT. Moreover, Wipro’s move to expand into China is seen as a means of tapping into the Japanese market as well. Wipro has posted increases in revenues in Latin America and the Middle East, tow emerging hotspots in the industry.

Whatever the trend that is likely to follow in the recovery phase, the sector is witnessing a new wave in outsourcing. Most likely, the pattern of offshoring is likely to shift to centers closer to home, with fewer players like India taking a big chunk of the market share. Furthermore, cost savings and efficiency among outsourced projects is expected to improve post recession.

Source: Nearshore Americas

Costa Rican call centers, now 47 in number, registered sales of $600 million last year, 8 per cent growth.

Most of the companies are in the free trade zones. The call centers employ around 12,000 people, mostly university students or recent graduates.

The main problem for the companies is in telecommunications. Another challenge they face is a high staff turnover.

Source: La Republica

About two years ago, Discovery Research took a trip to India.  A number of our clients had asked us to come up with a cost-effective offshoring solution for the market research data we collect.  India was all the rage at the time (might still be).  It seemed like many customer service organizations & some market research companies were sending calls out of India.  DRG hopped on a plane and headed on what was one of the longest flights on earth.  It took MANY hours to get there and when we arrived…what a culture shock.  After a week of traveling around the country, seeing elephants in the streets, a number of onsite visits, meetings with local organizations, being threatened by a street vendor (and threatened in one of our business meetings…contact actually said “How are you going to keep us (speaking of India) from taking over everything that you do and replacing you?”), being food poisoned on a local curry dish, and a grueling flight back, we felt like we’d truly seen it all (a travel companion actually touched a cobra).  I haven’t eaten Indian food since.

The million dollar question for us was…does India seem appropriate for the market research we conduct…and did an office in India seem like it would meet our business needs and the needs of our clients?  I wasn’t convinced.

A few months later, DRG took its first trip (of many) to Costa Rica.  Talk about a tale of two locations and two experiences.  While in Costa Rica (San Jose) we stayed at a local Marriott that had been converted from a coffee plantation, had watermelon juice for breakfast, were treated exceptionally well by our hosts and the businesses we met with (no threats from the locals), and had one of the best dinners…in one of the best locations I’ve ever been.  To top it off, we found out how bilingual (and educated) the residents of Costa Rica were, that Costa Rica is in the central timezone (sometimes mountain), and that it doesn’t take two days to fly there…what a delight (and a relief).

Discovery Research has been operating a call center in Costa Rica for about two years.  The people and the culture are awesome.  Our office there is an exciting and expanding part of our business.  And, we’ve learned a lot about conducting Hispanic research.

Source: Discovery Research Group

Salt Lake City, UT – January 11, 2010 – Teleperformance (News – Alert), the # 1 global leader in managing the customer experience in the outsourced contact center market, is pleased to announce its launch of operations in San José, Costa Rica.

The Costa Rica operations will primarily focus on serving the US domestic market and extends Teleperformance’s global geographic delivery leadership to 49 countries worldwide.

Teleperformance has already secured a multi-year agreement with an existing client that will be serviced by the newly launched Costa Rica operation. The initial operation includes approximate 300 workstations supporting the USA and an additional 100 workstations delivering services to the Latin American market.

Daniel Julien, Global CEO & Chairman of the Board of Teleperformance commented: “This move strengthens our footprint in Central America and simultaneously extends our existing industry lead in providing the most flexible and effective delivery options to our US market clients. We are very pleased to welcome Teleperformance Costa Rica worldwide family.”

Source: Company Press Release

1) Insure touch points with employees and customers. Ask yourself How and an will I as a Call Center Operations Manager insure my employees feel “TISP” Trusted, Important, Special and Pleased? Despite technology, the people are still the most important resource in a call center. Be specific. What will you do today to insure TISP Factor?

2) What is the quality of the coaching and motivation provided by call center supervisors? Turnover is expensive and supervisors will cost you quality employees. What initiatives do you have in place for employee retention which is as important as recruitment?

3) What scripts and monitoring services do you have in place to maximize per agent sales and service quality ratings? Have you applied the latest brain science and NLP voice coaching techniques to maximize sales and quality results?

4) Listen to calls every day without exception and Keep a Journal. What was the most difficult customer call and why? What was the best customer call you heard and why? (Be sure to tell or write a note to the agent about that best call of the day) What are customers saying about the product and or/service.

5) Most importantly observe and ask as operations manager. How might/can we do this cheaper, faster, better and provide a more energized environment for employees. (Review every protocol and procedure from scheduling to the employee break areas and look for ways to make operations better)

6) Know your Flow! Vulnerable service times, process and procedures. Have protocols in place for all worst case scenarios.

Source:  Costa Rica Call Center LinkedIn Group

Motif Inc., a leading U.S. based BPO and KPO Service Company that provides Customer Support, Back Office Processing, Research and Analytics, and Online Fraud Prevention services to Fortune 500 companies, has announced plans to set up a 500 seat service center in Costa Rica. The company will invest $2.5 million in this center that will begin operating in January 2010, with a 100-seat program to provide voice and email Customer Support to a leading online travel company.

The Costa Rica center will become part of Motif’s network of global delivery centers in India and the Philippines. The state-of-the-art center will offer bilingual support in English and Spanish; provide location redundancy and a marked increase in Motif’s global capacity to serve its fast-growing international customer base.

Motif’s President and CEO, Chris Meneze, indicated that “This is a significant milestone in Motif’s history – Our new Costa Rica center expands our international footprint and language capabilities, while positioning Motif for further growth.”

The Aftercare Director of the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), Vanessa Gibson, pointed out that “Costa Rica has been consolidating its position as a near shore destination by combining efficiency, quality and productivity for companies of the services sector such as Motif”.

Motif to hire 100 people before the end of the year

The international company will be a part of the 83 companies of the services sector already in the country. These companies, together, employ more than 24,000 Costa Ricans.

Source: Company Press Release

• Company is focused on corporate travel management
• Will train 30 people, aims to reach 150 in 12 to 15 months
• Costa Rican operation will handle business from Canada to Argentina

The company is scheduled to begin the second week of January in Heredia.

BCD Travel is a company that operates in 90 countries and has a payroll of 13,000 employees.  It has call centers in different regions of the world: six in the United States, six in Europe, one in Asia-Pacific and, most recently, in Costa Rica.

BCD Travel decided two months ago took to open its regional center in Costa Rica.

According to the company, the choice was based on traditional aspects as the country’s economic and political stability and its proximity to the U.S..

In addition to that, the company took into account the dynamics of Costa Rica in attracting investment and the availability of finding qualified personnel.

“We discussed for a while where to set up operations to serve the region.  In the process we spoke with representatives of other multinational companies to share their experiences and that helped us decide to establish a service center in the country, “said Barbara Blue, President for Latin America Division.

BCD Travel has already hired 30 people, which is training for the start of operations scheduled for January 11, 2010.

The site will cater customer inquiries in the Americas from Canada to Argentina in bilingual Spanish and English; however, the goal is to serve customers around the world.  To do this, BCD Travel plans are to reach 150 people within 12 to 15 months.

Source: La Nacion

Bob, the patient who is the subject of an eye-opening documentary about medical tourism described his knee problems as like “stepping on a steak knife. ” The makers of the film, the Medical Tourism Association, say Bob saved about $80,000 by going to Costa Rica to receive a double knee replacement.

Nearshore Americas provided “on the ground” coverage of the fast-growing medical tourism industry of Costa Rica earlier this year, which included a first-hand account of one man’s experience with vibroliposuction.

As someone who just received knee surgery because of recent collision on the basketball court, I sympathize with Bob’s predicament. He definitely made the right decision to get treatment by qualified professionals – which in this case happen to be in Costa Rica. Given the reaction of Bob’s family about seeking treatment in Costa Rica, we have a long way to go as a nation in understanding the high quality medical treatment options available offshore. (Word of warning, the video loads quite slowly and does not seem to allow for advancing.)

Video the Documentary: Bob’s Medical Treatment Story

Source: Nearshore Americas

WNS Holdings Limited (NYSE: WNS), a leading provider of global business process outsourcing (BPO) services, today announced the launch of its delivery center in San Jose, Costa Rica.

While the establishment of the Costa Rica center marks WNS’s entry into Latin America, it will also serve as a nearshore center for global clients with North American operations. The center is able to provide multi-lingual services in English and Spanish and will provide the complete suite of WNS services including finance and accounting (F&A), customer service and research and analytics.

“Our expansion into Costa Rica is a key step in expanding our global footprint and providing comprehensive, integrated solutions to our clients,” said Anup Gupta, Group Chief Operating Officer, WNS Global Services. “Our global delivery model enables us to improve our clients’ business by combining the right combination of geographic location with process transformation.”

Steve Reynolds, Managing Director – North America, WNS added, “As a location, Costa Rica provides a strong combination of language skills and talent, while still providing a competitive advantage for clients operating in the Americas. Language capability is a key delivery component for those who are increasingly looking to benefit from global delivery models.”

Source: CNN

Baxter, a company dedicated to the manufacture of medical devices, announced it will move to Costa Rica its financial operations now located in different Latin America countries.

This was announced by Carlos Alonso, president of the company for the region.  Alonso said Baxter began this year with the reorganization transferring the management of suppliers expenses from their operation in Puerto Rico.  By 2010, the company based in Illinois, United States, will do the same with financial operations in Argentina, Chile and Colombia, and the 2011 Mexico and Brazil.

These movements will generate more jobs, but Alonso did not offer details on the numbers.

“For Baxter, Costa Rica is very important because of the quality of its workforce, its stability and its proximity to the U.S., both geographically and culturally” he said.

He added: “In the Latin American context, Costa Rica is way ahead and that is visible to the company.  Costa Ricans should be proud and continue working in that direction”.

In Costa Rica, the company -who arrived in 1988- has 1,450 employees, of whom about 140 are devoted to financial and accounting transactions of the company, not only here in the region but also in the U.S.

Source: La Nacion