Global customer experience management firm iSON Xperiences has been appointed as the outsourced customer service provider for MTN South Africa. Combined with the Vodacom business attained through its recent acquisition of Altron People Solutions, this five-year deal sees iSON Xperiences now covering more than 50% of the market share in the telecom segment in the country.
“The project sees iSON Xperiences managing half of the outsourced customer service business of MTN South Africa. We feel we can add considerable value to the organisation, given our extensive experience in the telecom sector in Africa and the rest of the world,” says Pravin Kumar, Global CEO of iSON Xperiences.
The South African project reflects the exceptional work iSON Xperiences has done for the MTN Group across the continent in a similar call-centre outsourcing agreement put in place in mid-2015. As part of that deal, iSON Xperiences has been responsible for managing 100% of the call centre operations of MTN in six countries, South Africa being the 7th.
“iSON Xperiences has key expertise in lifecycle management contracts that are focused on growing the business of our customers. This reflects our strategic focus on long-term deals. For instance, other service providers might boast about how they manage 97% of their calls in 10 seconds. But if they do not help retain the customer, cross-sell, or increase average revenue per unit, then those claims have little value,” Kumar says.
As is evidence of this, Kumar cites how iSON Xperiences has enabled the MTN Group to substantially increase customer experience with much-reduced cost and has helped the company to increase its subscriber base significantly over the past five years after the outsourcing of the call centres.
“We have a proven track record of retaining our clients for many years because of this unrelenting commitment to helping them meet their objectives in retaining and growing their customer base. For iSON Xperiences, these projects are as much about the relationships with our customers as they are about creating local jobs. This has always been one of our core objectives when moving into Africa – to provide local people with the intellectual property and technology to join the job market. Fundamentally, we believe that local people must work in the customer service industry that serves that country,” he says.
It is this passion and willingness to work closely with local partners in creating jobs that have contributed to iSON Xperiences now owning 75% of the customer service market share in the telecoms industry in Africa. This includes managing 120 million customers for MTN Group, 80 million for Airtel, more than 40 million for Vodafone in Egypt, 12 million for Vodafone in Tanzania, and a combined total of more than 10 million customers for AirtelTigo in Rwanda and Ghana.
