From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report.

Sashnee Moodley:

As the business process outsourcing (BPO), or global business services (GBS), sector in South Africa continues to grow, local contact centres are shifting their focus towards digitally enabled jobs and embracing technological advancements, such as AI. Sabrina Jardim tells us more.

Sabrina Jardim:

During a media event on September 29, outsourced services industry organisation Business Process Enabling South Africa (BPESA) CEO Reshni Singh described AI as a “positive disruption” in the BPO sector.

She explained that, while South Africa is consistently ranked among the top three locations for customer experience, international clients are increasingly looking for capabilities that combine customer engagement with technology, business processes and digital problem solving.

In this vein, global collections and BPO company Nutun chief client and operations officer Stephen de Blanche told Engineering News that the impact of AI on the BPO sector has been broad-based.

Nutun has embraced a hybrid model where advanced AI and automation augment human agents and advisors rather than replace them.

The company launched its AI operations Centre in Johannesburg, Gauteng, in June. It incorporates the company’s proprietary agentic AI solution Zoey, which operates across two functions.

As an outbound agentic AI, she authenticates consumer identities, negotiates payment commitments, offers settlement discounts, concludes payment arrangements and facilitates warm-lead transfers to human agents where the interaction requires it.

As a quality assurance intelligence layer, she listens to agent-based calls across Nutun's principal portfolio, ranking call disposition and agent performance, surfacing consumer insight and providing post-call coaching to agents.

Nutun chief client and operations officer Stephen de Blanche…

Sabrina Jardim:

The BPO sector continues to be a major employer in South Africa, with about 180 000 jobs created over ten years, of which about 90% of sector hires are young people, according to BPESA.

South African-founded BPO iContact explained that more organisations are partnering with BPO providers to boost efficiency, manage costs and enhance customer experience, highlighting the importance of choosing the right BPO partners.

The company explained that South Africa has invested heavily in the telecommunications and data infrastructure necessary for modern collection operations, including sophisticated dialler systems, customer relationship management platforms and compliance monitoring tools.

iContact COO David Hood…

BPESA investment promotion, aftercare, marketing and research lead Angela Kays…

Sashnee Moodley:

That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy. Don’t forget to listen to the audio version of our Engineering News daily email newsletter.