Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. Today we take cx passport where it's never been before to the African continent, specifically South Africa. You may not know it, but South Africa has an already vibrant and rapidly growing BPO call center industry. Today's guest Clinton Cohen of icontact has a front row seat to that industry leading a company providing BPO services to a wide range of industries and geographies. I'm eager to learn more about the South African perspective today and I'm looking forward to my chat with Clinton. Clinton. Welcome to cx passport.

Clinton Cohen: 1:04

Hi, Rick. Thanks for having me.

Rick Denton: 1:06

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. And as we were talking before we hit record here. It is kind of, I'm sitting here in North Texas, where you have thunderstorms and heat and sweat. And I'm looking at you here in the video and you're in a jacket. So it's always fun to talk to my southern hemisphere counterparts.

Clinton Cohen: 1:21

Absolutely. Listen, the end of winter, looking forward to transitioning into spring. But in the southern hemisphere in South Africa, I think we've got winter for all of three weeks. So really looking forward to that.

Rick Denton: 1:33

Okay, another reason for me to get down there well, so in the intro there, I did mention how South Africa continues to be a growing area for the BPO industry. Now, I suppose First, I need to ask you just briefly to find BPO for our listeners, but then help me understand what's driving south africa's growth in this space.

Clinton Cohen: 1:52

Rick, BPO, by definition is a delegation of services to an external provider that manages these processes against a set of defined metrics. That's your textbook stuff, definition of BPO. Obviously, on a broader sense, you know, where BPO sits in South Africa falls under our GBS global business service sector. And for that it's providing services to all business globally. I think, to the second part of the question there in terms of understanding the growth in the South African space, really lends itself towards our beautiful country to, to put it up there on the mental piece of diverse world infrastructure that we've gotten the delivery of these BPO services to the global market, I think this is really all stemmed and come from a place where pre COVID pre pandemic, not that we wanted labor too much, but certain businesses may have been apprehensive to outsource certain parts of their service, right? Come on, Come along, COVID, all of a sudden, you know, organizations are pivoting their teams to work from home. And now people are starting to realize, well, my teams are working remotely. So you know, work on those processes land, you know, globally. So I think that's one part of the answer. But I think the second aspect in terms of the growth is, you know, a hidden gems such as South Africa that may not have been on many global markets, radars, or organization's radars is is now coming front and center where, you know, organizations are looking for those untapped gems, such as South Africa, to be able to provide great quality service into the market.

Rick Denton: 4:01

I think one of the things you refer to as an untapped gem, and I hope we get to, you know, talk a little bit about South Africa, that country as well. But I think to one of the things that it sounds like South Africa benefits from along with just nice geographic alignments. So I've talked to several of my European colleagues, and have they've referred to how South Africa is nice that it's at least in a close time zone, right? They're not flipping the world and flipping the the day on its head by looking to folks on the other exact side of the world. But even there's a closeness to even the Western Hemisphere to some degree that can support there. But I know that you and I talked also about kind of just the population and the heart in the population and the people now, I know that when you're talking about this just rapid gross that exists in the industry, it talent acquisition can be a challenge, regardless of industry, but even so inside of South Africa and inside of the BPO world where you're really focused on heart of the customer. How are you going about talent acquisition with this great growth and making sure that you're bringing in folks that have that true heart of the customer.

Clinton Cohen: 5:07

Great. That's a amazing question. You know, in terms of talent acquisition, fortunately, South Africa has really a large, untapped talent pool of skilled people who, on one hand, unfortunately, South Africa has a higher rate of unemployment. The opportunity presented itself in our global service sector is this is a wonderful employment sector to be able to reach into that untapped talent pool farms, select the right talent, and bring them in to deliver world class cx into those delivery markets.

Rick Denton: 5:53

So with any can tell, I've got like seven questions hitting my brain at the same time, there's I stutter all over myself. But I'm thinking there's got to be ways that you go about really identifying it. Because while there is this wide swath of population that BPO is a great opportunity for them. How do you go about making sure you're selecting folks that have that heart because not everybody necessarily has that heart of the customer, they might have a particular skill or something else. But it's that heart of a customer that's so important in a call center, what are some ways that you go about doing that?

Clinton Cohen: 6:25

To start that off, I think at the beginning, you know, there's obviously always the digital play in terms of any recruitment drops. So, you know, digitally, you're going to kind of reach out for for talent to kind of, you know, those job seekers looking inward, and, and they'll come through various different channels in through those portals that we run. But as I suppose the staplers further once, once those selected candidates come in, there's a whole host of assessments benchmarking to really drill in to find that top cream talent that you talk so much about that, you know, so much about the heart that so much wearing it on your sleeve, but delivering that excellence, South Africans, as a nation has a really high level of empathy. And that's probably just you know, that's running through our DNA is when candidates coming to kind of the GBS sector, it's through those assessments, benchmarking and tools that you're really drilling into find where those candidates stand head and shoulders above the rest. And we have so much access to those type of individuals. So it's an exciting landscape for us.

Rick Denton: 7:41

Yeah, that's true. And you and I had talked about an article that I wrote several years ago called hire happy people. And it's that idea of hiring for heart and teaching for skill. Now, we all know that that doesn't apply in all industries, I want those that are designing my aircraft wing to have skill, I don't care nearly as much about their heart, I want them to have engineering skill. But when it comes to things that engage right directly with the customer, that heart for the customer is probably the most important. So thinking about that though. So once you're inside the call center, those individuals are the ones that are directly interacting with the customer. So that's the epicenter, that's where customer experience customer service, that's where it meets meets up. And so how do you keep a frontline motivated? How do you celebrate and motivate that frontline? As they're delivering that great customer oriented service?

Clinton Cohen: 8:30

There's multiple ways and and there's multiple events that talk to the same thing. So, you know, I think, first and foremost, we're an organization at our contact that doesn't believe in you know, we believe in paying living wages, so well above kind of market related and I think, first and foremost, that talks to employee satisfaction in terms of reward remuneration, and what they're doing in the context data, but then going above and beyond and getting people to stand up with those excellent Well, they're certainly the areas of gamification and leaderboards where you know, kind of employees rank against and there's this internal natural competition of who wants to be the best I suppose it talks to those who are at the bottom of the rung never want to be at the bottom so they you know, continuously want to drive their own performance. But I think but I think Further to that, you know, it's about the celebration, it's about celebrating the small wins. It's not always about those big outstanding wow achievements. And whether it's, you know, acknowledgement Pat's on the backs, whether it's quarterly certification and award sessions held within the the contact centers. And then you can always further speak to financial remuneration and yeah, Same as above and beyond based package.

Rick Denton: 9:52

Yeah, there's a phrase that I say and sometimes it's better if I'm visually writing it out, but I talked about capital I incentives lowercase I incentives and capitalized incentives are the it's that's the money. That's the you're paying and that's capital I incentives and any sort of financial reward, but lowercase I incentives are those exactly that the idea of celebration, motivation gamification, highlighting that really special moment and telling a great story about an employee and how they engaged with a customer and a particularly special way or perhaps a customer challenge that was overcome in a special way and then that sort of celebration creates this positive feedback loop of if that's being celebrated and I want to do that so that I can be celebrated so

Clinton Cohen: 10:34

absolutely love it and Rick, you mind if I quote you on the capital I because you're not resonates with me It rings true and I love it.

Rick Denton: 10:42

Oh, feel free? Yes, there is no trademark there. In fact, for all I know, I stole it from someone else. I don't think so. But who knows, I've been saying it for a while now. So I don't recall where it came from.

Clinton Cohen: 10:50

Beautiful. I love it.

Rick Denton: 10:51

Um, so let's but let's talk about that. So as you said, bottom rung top, a rung, that's our stuff. But even in general, people want to grow. We talked about hiring happy people, but then teaching them skills, because as you're doing, you're serving clients around the globe, and all sorts of industries, there's a lot of employee development that needs to take place. And so that's a key to building a really dynamic and customer centered frontline. How do you approach employee development?

Clinton Cohen: 11:17

employee development is a continuous journey. And yeah, I absolutely get passionate about it. And, you know, part about part of our group structure and clearly defined across all our candidates. Across all as separate businesses are the aspect of learning, you know, whether we're providing National Qualifications through learnerships, that how employees engage on to upskill. That's certain, that's a certain channel that we encourage employees for certain Kenya with certain milestones to embark to continuously improve that meet standards, obviously, based in South Africa, but just business knowledge, acumen, skill sets, depth development, I think, um, you know, certainly passionate about bringing in bringing in talent, developing talent, even if that means at a certain point, they're going to move on from the crime Tech Center on to better bigger life experiences for themselves. What a wonderful gift to be able to support that, through the development. That skills knowledge is, you know, happening, whether informally through team leads, managers on the floors, coaches, trainers, yeah, there's that aspect. But then there's alarming to certain qualifications and standards that really taking employees on that career path journey onwards to bigger, better things, hopefully, mostly in the context center. But again, you know, if people are exiting to bigger, better things for themselves, that's a great achievement to, from our perspective.

Rick Denton: 13:08

A little change of pace here. Now, South Africa is a long flight for many of us. In fact, there I remember in my younger days, it would be the longest flight in the world from the US are those kind of things obviously, there's been some longer flights now. But I think of that and one day hope to get there. But with those long flights with those long travels, it's clear that we need a little rest so why don't you join me here in the first class lounge, we will move quickly here and hopefully have some fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Clinton Cohen: 13:40

Rick, I've got to do two. And I've got to first and foremost, for all your listeners for all you know, all the follow is absolute sluss of heaven, in the eastern part of South Africa is a place called plettenberg Bay. It is the most gentle Bay Area when October the whales come into the bay and bring their babies. its pristine beaches. It's just as I said, a piece of heaven. If I take us out of South Africa and in I take myself to mark, global Mar personal favorite and we're going to go to a winter sitting here for half a minute would be the locks of Austria skiing, pristine mountains, snow capped absolutely love snowboarding being out in the open and free play.

Rick Denton: 14:30

I love this. So you gave us a beautiful beach vision. You've given us a gorgeous mountain setting. I like your dream travel location from the past. You've given me some dream travel locations for the future. But what about you? What's a dream travel location that you've not been to yet?

Clinton Cohen: 14:48

There's an island and many may know it called Bora Bora, part of the French Polynesian islands. Seen it once in a movie caught my attention. Absolutely. See myself in a wooden deck stilts in the middle of the ocean like son it would be an absolute dream bucket list of mind loves to get a one day.

Rick Denton: 15:10

Boy it does sound nice absolutely does. What is a favorite thing to eat?

Clinton Cohen: 15:20

I've got to put forward what's called a Barabbas roll, which is a description of a Barabbas roll is a south south african minced, so minced meat with a very thin layer of encapsulating this almost sausage like grows on a barbecue. We call it a Bry and put in a roll with ketchup, mustard, grilled onions, probably found in ballparks. But that's more hotdog above us roll is more Meteor than a version of a VM is hot dog. So there will be a South African dish that I've got to flaunt again with our destination. And I think Yeah, to others of mine in terms of favorites. If you ask me this as a kid, my staple dog was spaghetti bolognaise maybe it was just the way my mama made it. And you know, as a as I've grown up with acquired taste, and got to give some credit to my beautiful wife would be oysters Tabasco sauce, who Yeah, something, something that I've definitely acquired in top.

Rick Denton: 16:27

Very, very nice. That's right. Those all sound good. Now wants you to say the first one. It sounds really good, but it's completely new to me. So what was the first thing you said again?

Clinton Cohen: 16:37

So the first one is called buraverse roll.

Rick Denton: 16:42

All right,

Clinton Cohen: 16:42

A buarverse roll. I'll try to give the description well, oh, yeah,

Rick Denton: 16:46

that sounds delicious and delicious.

Clinton Cohen: 16:48

South Africans are going to be laughing but it's an absolute stable on any barbecue in South Africa. That's odd. So the steak or the chops or any of those kind of things, you're having more of us on a barbecue

Rick Denton: 16:59

nice. Well, I'm, I hope someday to one go see this beautiful Bay that you're describing, and then have a burger vos role sometimes. So let's, let's go the other direction, though. What is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hate it as a kid.

Clinton Cohen: 17:14

What I loved about my parents is I never forced me but I mean the strong word literal on it. cauliflower and broccoli as a kid were never my favorite. never wanted to eat them and always kind of managed to leave them on the side of the planet. Yeah. Fast forward today. I've got an appetite for it. And I absolutely enjoy it. And interesting how I watch my kids do what I did. So yeah. Very much.

Rick Denton: 17:42

Broccoli has come up often on the show in that question. And I've also had the same answer a lot of but I like it now it is funny how our tastes evolve. So going back to travel it's close out of the first class lounge here with not including your phone. What is one travel item you will not leave home without

Clinton Cohen: 18:01

first and foremost the possible but let's move on foreign passport. Let's get on for me. It's all about my pillow. my pillow my cushion. If I don't have a good night's rest tomorrow morning, I'm grumpy. And what a better way where's my travel pillow whether my actual pillow depending on the duration of stay abroad. It's an absolute must travel with me and gets pulled along with most places like that.

Rick Denton: 18:31

When we know South Africa, like many countries, has opportunities for social impact. And you and I have talked about how you hope to position eye contact to be a place for that impact sourcing. Help me understand what you mean by impact sourcing.

Clinton Cohen: 18:48

Rick has many layers levels of of impact sourcing, but at its true base at its true hard impact sourcing refers to disadvantage disabled employees that really don't have access to a formal market. Earlier I use the term, you know, South Africa being this, you know, hidden gem for us at its base level, whilst the certain access to skilled talent in the formal market. There's the absolute hidden gems from an index sourcing, who just whether it be through financial means transportation means just living outside of the cities can't get access into the form of job markets. That's what we refer to about impact sourcing.

Rick Denton: 19:43

So it makes sense to me so that's that's good. So it says how can our sourcing have an impact, but it sounds there's there's clearly some work to be done there. So how how do you go about doing that? So even if it's aspirational, let's say that even if you haven't made it there yet, what's the journey to getting? Eye contact where it is that place of impact sourcing that it is Expanding the opportunities those outside of the formal job market and providing those paths for growth and opportunity.

Clinton Cohen: 20:09

It's a fantastic, you know, fantastic question. absolutely passionate about talking, you know, today in South Africa, our industry bodies, yeah, really have created the end developed for the labor market, these portals that speak to impact sourcing, that in able disadvantaged, disabled youth in untapped markets to be able to register themselves on these portals that all of a sudden, open up this world and access for them into the labor market. That's on a formal front. And those, you know, have been established over the last couple of years, I think, then there's always the informal drivers that come from our contact with, you know, if we want to go set up in some of the more rural locations, and kind of have open days for recruitment and interviews. It's such an empowering and humbling experience, to be able to see people who haven't had access, and who absolutely blow your way to an interview stage for their heart Deaf culture of what they want to display on a global stage.

Rick Denton: 21:28

That is so true. And there are so many structural barriers that exist in South Africa, they exist in the US, there are there are these barriers that are in play that it's going to take active, push through those barriers, like you're describing. So not just like the portal is one layer. But I like how you took that next layer. But then we physically go out into a space because for all we know, they have no access to sign up on a portal. But instead, hey, we're here. This is what we've got. Let's let's talk and then that goes back to that I another barrier that exists as well, you haven't had you have not had four years of BPO industry experience? Well, who cares? If you've got a heart for the customer will teach you that BPO experience? And I like that spirit that you're providing there?

Clinton Cohen: 22:10

Absolutely. And that and that talks to that skills training that will give you know, we know, certain programs required certain levels. But again, there's an absolute baseline. And I think the main driver for us, you know, around impact sourcing is that corporate social responsibility to provide above, you know, basic ways that living standard wage all our employees, that not only changes the laws financially, but they take it back into their communities and epilepsy communities to and that's the full circle that just you absolutely see being driven through employment creation through impact sourcing,

Rick Denton: 22:51

yeah, I like that. And it only because I have so many other things, I want to ask you about what we keep going but that'd be a great thing to close on, right? Just talk about how, how sourcing, and how BPO industry and all that can really have some impact on that sourcing, but you're doing this on behalf of your your clients, you're doing this on behalf of the customers that you serve, not just the customers that are on the other end of the phone line, but the clients of your company. And I know that one thing that is particularly unique about a BPO is you can collect customer insights, you're there on the front line, and that was insights help your company improve. But you also can use those insights to help your clients improve. So how do you drive both of those internal close feedback loops? So you've got a loop for your own company? And then you got a loop for the your clients? How does that work for you?

Clinton Cohen: 23:40

The value that we see coming through, obviously for our own for our own business, and being on the front line, you're getting the data raw, you're getting those experience from the agents, you know, raising particular queries, raising patterns, you're seeing it in the AR driven behind speech to text, you're seeing it coming through in all sorts of shapes and forms. And what does it do first and foremost, obviously, your coaches trainers internally, then bring it back and upskill and train the frontline workers to be better, do better perform better. The ultimate drivers which, which are really great to close the loop internally. And and I kind of say this to, you know, any of our clients who, whether it's their first time outsourcing or you know, it's usually to the first time outsources but if they're expecting to outsource certain tasks, or, or, or areas and there isn't a fundamental connection on a continuous basis, engaging with one another. We're going to get all this data and we're going to tell them that these are all the problems that exist are the challenges that exist. We think this is the best way to resolve it. And it's through that collaboration together with our clients it works, but what we're what is trying to hide Like this is a downplay so. So that's the positive aspect of internal knowledge coming into us and closing our loops and coaching and training internally, the collaboration with clients on that process and holding up those mirrors, you know, maybe they don't know that there's logistic issues coming. But we've got 45 calls today all around cell deliveries. So as an example, those are the great things you see on the front line, that true closed loop with a client is really about their collaboration in journey together, whether it's through listening to polls together with it, through providing that data and insight back to them. And having that partnership approach in terms of how we together are resolving those particular issues, challenges, concerns, lots of wins to there.

Rick Denton: 25:53

Yeah, and a theme that I heard through there is a process a disciplined approach, right? It can't be something that's ad hoc, but rather, this is how we engage with you client, we absorb these insights, hey, let's I love the call as a big fan of that, I always use that with clients. And the idea that hey, let's sit down listen calls together, because it is amazing how report can say one thing. But if you just hit play on a call with that the impact that exists there so good to hear how you develop that with both your internal and with your your external clients. Now I'm going to do a complete pivot here to close this out. And I want to go back with kind of thoughts on perspective, taking a sort of closing out on the travel thoughts. So I'm an American. And so I think of my world as domestic and normal. But to you, someone who's traveled to the US, My world is international and different. So tell me more about your perspective on travel, how it shaped you what you've experienced from travel, and just take us home with thoughts on travel.

Clinton Cohen: 26:49

Rick, obviously being privileged enough to have traveled around the world. What I absolutely love is that global perspective that I've gained through those travels, be it you know, in Austria or the United States, where is the United States for now? You're quite right, it's still foreign for me, you all sound a bit funny. You know, me? Well, you know, we get told we've got an accent but then, but but let's do the point you like this? Lots of nuances. So yes, well, South Africa, well, myself personally, you know, there's a lot of Western cultural alignment, and there's a lot of similarities. But the smells, the tastes, the feelings, you know, do you travel a little bit European and language sets change and cultures change and food changes. You know, cultural, you go a little bit more Eastern Eastern cultures that there's their ways and cultures and you know, how people engage in respect. I love these learnings and they've, you know, absolutely helped open my mind or transformed me into a way of thinking that I have an insatiable hunger for more. I love I love the nuances. I love the learnings. I love the cultural, the cultural, heartbeat, that's different in every single different country that we visit. I like that a lot.

Rick Denton: 28:25

I cultural heartbeat. That may be the time that you may have just given me the show title here, right here at the end. So that's, that's brilliant Clinton. So clean. I love it.

Clinton Cohen: 28:35

I've got it. I've got it a very give you the credit, because there were a couple of times in in the conversation today where we talked about the heart of the customer, we talked about the heart of the employee and wearing our hearts on our sleeve. That's the cultural heartbeat set up that game true.

Rick Denton: 28:49

Well, Clinton, thank you so much. Hey, if folks want to get in touch with you, how can they get in touch with you? How can they learn a little bit more about you and I contact? Rick,

Clinton Cohen: 28:57

Our website is www dot icontact bpo.com. All our contact information there. Reach out to us, we would absolutely love to explore anyone's requirements field questions. I'm open available to have discussions. Absolutely love sharing in the space. And again, thank you for the opportunity today.

Rick Denton: 29:22

Yeah, and Clinton. It's been wonderful. So I've really enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you for allowing me to have step one into the African continent. I look forward to having many more conversations as I expand my global or how at this as I expand my cultural heartbeat and gain more cx wisdom as I get exposure to more voices from around the world. you've provided some brilliant insights. I enjoyed really talking about kind of talent acquisition and the growth of the industry and getting a better understanding of the South African BPO space and how you focus on heart. It's been great talking about some of the travel experiences and certainly I have now had at least Half a dozen and maybe more reasons for me to get to South Africa and I look forward to the opportunity to do that someday. So Clinton, brilliant conversation, enjoyed the heck out of it. Thank you so much. Enjoy your remaining days of winter and I wish you a wonderful upcoming spring.

Clinton Cohen: 30:16

Thanks Rick looking forward to Baba barbecuing Yarborough's role in play to big Bay when you get over the side of the world. Thanks for the opportunity to connect to that.

Rick Denton: 30:29

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.