The client is one of Europe’s fastest growing mobile companies operating in eight countries. The client has a revolutionary customer service methodology and culture, which has seen them awarded numerous industry accolades for customer service excellence.
Mindpearl Fiji were already providing English voice and non-voice language services for this client’s Australian market and were doing so successfully since 2012. Due to increasing labour market costs in the UK, high staff turnover and lack of office space capacity, the client was eager to transfer some French, English and Arabic voice and non-voice operations for European markets to a contact centre that would be able to provide the language skills and unique culture that their brand requires.
This language requirement was the business case for a second location, namely, Mindpearl Cape Town. Having exceeded the client’s expectations by producing outstanding results for two years, the client was confident in our ability to duplicate the successful operation we had built in Fiji. The challenges faced included an aggressive timeline of 3 months and duplication of the client’s unique customer service model in a second location.
The client had the benefit of the same Project Manager within Mindpearl who had migrated their Australian market to our Fiji operations in 2012, bringing key foresight and expertise to this project. He led the project team with representatives from our Fiji and Cape Town offices ensuring the successful migration from strategic planning, design, solution development, transition throughgo live and to monitoring. Weekly calls with the whole project team and key stakeholders in Fiji and Cape Town were held to ensure open communication and a consistent approach was followed in both locations.
Utilising internal expertise and learning outcomes from the previous migration the team also consulted the client on risks associated with local and international 3rd party suppliers, effectively mitigating numerous risks. In addition, the team recommended adaptations to the original recruitment strategy due to cultural difference in this location and built a superior BCP solution for this client.These consultancy services and our BCP solution were proved at no additional cost.
On the 2nd June 2014, the team seamlessly transferred the French, English and Arabic workload to Mindpearl Cape Town. Mindpearl has exceeded all expectations by consistently exceeding NPS targets and achieving utilisation targets from the start. In addition, the client experienced a 35% cost saving and increased their strategic BCP resilience. Expert knowledge gathered from the initial client migration in 2012, ensured a smoother migration and less inexperience time. Best practice and global standards were effortlessly transferred and shared between Cape Town and Fiji. Input and recommendations from Mindpearl’s team mitigated risk; ensured timelines were met and enabled operational excellence from the onset.
What the Chief Commercial Officer at Mindpearl had to say: ‘’The input and recommendations from this Migration Team proved to be a tremendous value add to this project. We are extremely proud of our people on a job well done.’ says Alan Graham, Chief Commercial Officer, Mindpearl
Rolling sand dunes as far as the eye can see, one of the largest concentration of bushmen rock art, diverse cultures, and luxury game reserves! Namibia certainly offers the avid traveler a range of activities and adventure.
During the Covid pandemic Mindpearl officially launched a Work from Home (WFH) model in Namibia which, through growing client demand has provided the opportunity for German linguists to join the Mindpearl team, whilst Mindpearl maintain a competitive market edge through ensuring our quality of linguists are maintained.
Why Namibia?
Culture and Language
Historical events have led to a strong presence of German culture and language in Namibia today. Certain educational institutions provide schooling in German only, while others offer it as a second language, providing all communities with the opportunity to learn a European language, which may provide for broader job prospects. Mindpearl is leveraging this pool of fluent German linguists.
Exchange Rate
Namibia is on the border of South Africa, and with the strong ties between the two countries, pegging of the NAD to the ZAR helps maintain stability in the Namibian economy by reducing exchange rate fluctuations and facilitating trade and investment.
Infrastructure and Work from Home model
The Covid 19 pandemic changed the way in which many businesses operate, with the WFH model being utilised across the globe in many industries. Although operations have normalised, Mindpearl are strategically utilising the WFH model in Namibia, which has a developed telecommunication infrastructure and ensures our Namibian Mindpearl colleagues have everything they need to continue effective service delivery.
Since inception of the WFH model across Mindpearl locations, productivity levels for WFH have proved at minimum to be as successful as our onsite models. As part of the employee learning journey, Mindpearl incorporated a WFH training module, with strong emphasis on self-management and accountability, ensuring understanding that performance management is addressed consistently whether you WFH or onsite. Regular performance feedback and coaching, team check-ins and meetings with line managers guarantee a supportive environment and maintain qualitative outcomes.
Mindpearl Lima opened its doors in July 2019 to strengthen our service provision from within the Latin American markets with a highly-skilled workforce of native level Spanish and Portuguese linguists. Mindpearl Lima commenced with an initial staff complement of 20 and have expanded to over 50 employees.
Lima offers Spanish and Portuguese skills in abundance and further reinforces the 25+ language offering within the Mindpearl network.
Building on the success of Mindpearl’s existing locations, Mindpearl is confident in replicating this success in South America. Mindpearl remain committed to providing clients with best in class service whilst pushing the boundaries of convention to deliver the ultimate brand experience.
A welcoming working environment, competitive salaries and employee development opportunities remain some of Mindpearl’s compelling selling propositions.
A pioneering move by William Pattison, our CEO, saw one of the first international call centre in Suva, Fiji Islands open in 2009. This BPO location offers a high quality and cost efficient English language alternative to offshore locations such as India and the Philippines. Fiji also boasts a rich expat community, which adds to its value proposition as Fijian, Hindi, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German, Swiss German, Portuguese and Tamil to name a few, is offered in Fiji. Today, Mindpearl Suva houses numerous International clients across numerous industry verticals. Fiji also won the Offshoring Destination of the Year 2014 by the European Outsourcing Association (EOA) and has been a finalist in both the EOA and NOA UK awards in 2015 and 2016.
In 2017 Mindpearl was awarded Excellence in eCommerce at the Fiji Prime Minister’s annual International Business Awards.
Cape Town has a skilled workforce with excellent language skills. Cape Town offers Mindpearl access to English speakers and a broad range of European language resources. Cape Town is a modern city with an advanced technology and telephony infrastructure that is robust and resilient. South Africa has won both the National and European Outsourcing Association Offshoring Destination of the Year awards for 2012 and 2013 respectively. South Africa also won the Global Sourcing Association Offshoring Destination of the Year award in 2016. The Global Sourcing Association was previously known as The National Outsourcing Association.