• It has serviced international clients in South Africa or abroad.
• Products or services impacted clients?
• They have contributed to employment in South Africa?
• The company’s ability to create employment for the youth in South Africa.
• They have contributed to the country’s export revenue.

This is about how companies can plan and transition from being an entirely domestic company into an international one. For service companies, like outsource contact centres, this includes the ability to support language, mirror culture, address IT systems, meet another country’s regulatory requirements, and manage risks such as changing foreign exchange rates and political developments.

Companies that plan to supply products/services internationally will need to factor in other considerations, such as shipping, customer and duty charges, foreign exchange rates, and legal requirements that may attach to the type of product they sell.

The Purpose of this Standard

The purpose is for a company to engage in the process of becoming ready for trading on the international stage or, if already on that stage, to become more mature, through focus on several key categories including:

• Suitability
• Competence of management
• Readiness
• Available subsidies/support
• Business model licensing
• Knowledge of international target market(s)
• International law (trading, protection of intellectual property, copyright etc.)
• Duties, taxes, and customs (as appropriate)
• Infrastructure
• Business offer (strengths, weaknesses, assets, adaptability, competition etc.)

The Criteria of this Standard

Broadly, this criteria talks to the competencies of the leadership and management, the overall health of the business, the appetite (motivation) to enter new markets, any lessons learned from previous experience (with evidence of improvements and change made as a result of these lessons) and evidence of appropriate research into the target market (including competition, legislation, infrastructure, relationships, overall SWOT etc.)

The assessment process for uploading information and documentation for review:

• How long has your company been in business:
• How long has your Holding Company been in business
• Please outline your products or services that are being deployed to support international companies locally or overseas.
• Current income derived from internationally outsourced business creating jobs in South Africa
  • 0 – 1M per year
  • Over 1 M – 5M per year
  • Over 5 M – 10M per year
  • Over 10M per year
• How does this compare to the products or services being delivered in SA
• What is the duration of these outsourced projects?

• How many FTE’s are currently employed in your company
• providing services to international companies.
• What type of visa’s are you using for your foreign nationals?

Today, companies must have robust operational and system business continuity plans to deal with significant local and national events and disruptions, now including global events like the COVID-19 crisis. Many regulatory bodies review company’s operational resilience and expect these companies to take reasonable steps to ensure they continue to comply with their regulatory obligations, notwithstanding any adjustments made to their usual practices in the context of extraordinary circumstances.

Resilience strategy should prevent, adapt to, respond to, recover from, and learn from operational disruptions. Whilst operational risk is centred around risk management, operational resilience is an outcome which should be looked on as a forward-looking approach where decisions are made today to prevent detriment in the future.

The Purpose of this Standard

In a period where company’s operational resilience is even more challenging, as key members of staff are working remotely, the need for building resilience against any business disruption is more important than ever. Therefore, the purpose of this standard is to give companies the ability to demonstrate their own resilience as an assurance to internal and external stakeholders and customers.

This standard is accountable to all the key pillars of any company – People, customers, shareholders, partners & clients:

• People – Employment continuity, systems & collaboration tools for remote working and work-life balance in a safe environment. Maintain culture and HR practices to maintain and build loyalty
• Clients – Data security, business continuity, end customer experience, seamless functioning through cloud-based systems
• Shareholders – Business continuity, financial adherence, reputation management & business growth
• Partners/Vendors – Seamless functioning, payments, exchange of services and relationship management
• End Customers – Brand representation, experience, resolution, empathy & connect

The Criteria of this Standard

Criteria for this will include the ability of the company to demonstrate their planning for the unforeseen, test those plans and deploy those plans quickly and effectively. Business Continuity Planning should be thorough, address all parts of the company, including, for example, the need to access data in real-time, support regulatory and compliance requirements and be thoroughly understood by all members of staff.

These plans should be tested, and measurements and feedback from these tests be incorporated into required improvements to the plans.

The assessment process for uploading information and documentation for review:

• In your company what would you classify as future disasters that could face the country or the industry
• Please upload your Disaster Recovery Policy
• Please upload your Work from Home Policy
• Please upload and additional Policies that will govern the smooth running of your company in case of any disasters
• Briefly describe your use of technology to assist your company with any future disasters

Customer centricity is often seen as a catchall for ideas like customer satisfaction, customer experience and customer feedback. However, being truly customer-centric is about more than that. It’s about more than just making your customers happy. And it’s not enough to assume you know what your customers need.

Research by Deloitte and Touche found that Customer-centric company’s think like their customers and are 60% more profitable than companies that are not focused on the customer. They make decisions with the customer in mind and use customer feedback and continuous engagement to drive loyalty and retention. They go beyond basic demographic profiling and use big and small data to gain an intimate understanding of their customers, using various tools and strategies that include focus groups and one-to-one customer dialogue.

The Purpose of this Standard

The purpose of the standard is to allow companies, who believe themselves to be customer-centric, to demonstrate this against a set of aspirational “Best Practices”,that include how the company:

The Criteria of this Standard

This standard is measured, in the main, by how:

The assessment process for uploading information and documentation for review:

• Customer Experience Policy
• How do you Measure Customer Experience (please select those applicable)
  • Calculate the net promotor score
  • Analyse the customer journey analytics
  • Determine customer churn rate
  • Interpret customer support ticket trends
  • Measure customer satisfaction scores
  • Other
  • If other, please elaborate on the process
• What technology if any do you use to monitor your customer service
• Customer experience scorecards for all / current campaigns for a period of > 12 months.

Employability is a concept focused both on people’s competencies and qualifications enhancing the individual’s capacity to make use of education, training, and job opportunities, and on the responsibility to provide equal access to these opportunities.

Professional Classification and Continuous Professional Development

Encouraging lifelong learning and skills development policies for the up skilling of competencies throughout working lives and by providing opportunities to address the training and re-training needs of current staff and people re-entering the labor market after absences for example childrearing. Skills are a key aspect of workers’ ability to remain in gainful employment and of their job satisfaction.

The purpose of this standard:

• Creating Labor Pools for Real or Probable Needs – Participating as a Company or within a Sectoral scheme in creating gainful working opportunities for the currently unemployed workforce and meeting percentages.
• Meeting the Professional Designation Requirements of the professional body – Compliance with the requirements for meeting the appropriate level of Managers and Staff who have been Professionally Designated by the professional body and are actively participating in Continuous Professional Development Programs registered with the professional body.
• Creating employment opportunities for the vulnerable – Contributing towards the gainful employment either as a company or by participating in a Sectoral Scheme designed to employ the vulnerable in society, including those who are disabled

The Criteria of this Standard:

• The company invests in skills development in line with modern theories of innovation and productivity that emphasize the role of workplace practices and lifelong learning.
• The company registers and encourages its staff to maintain their designations and continuous professional development.

The assessment process for uploading information and documentation for review:

• Upload your Workplace Skills Plan.
• What plans are in place to achieve the 10% target of designated employees in the business for any statutory/non-statutory bodies, in year one?
• What designations other than the Contact Centre industry are held by your staff.
• What CPD plans are in place for the staff in the upcoming year.

Compliance means complying with rules. These may be internal to the company or external. Compliance is not just the law; compliance standards are regulated by regulatory bodies and the country’s legislation. Contact Centre operations, IT managers, support departments and staff must be aware of, and in support of, their country’s and industry’s regulations and compliance.

Moreover, if they are supporting Clients in other countries, they must also comply with any regulations or compliances of those countries. Effective leaders constantly evaluate their current security state and consider where to make strategic improvements to continue meeting the high-security standards required for a contact center’s workforce and a security-focused company.

The Purpose of this Standard

The purpose is to give companies the ability to demonstrate their effective management of compliance, both for internal audit purposes and for providing assurance to those regulatory bodies, Clients, Customers and Staff. The goal is to allow the company to demonstrate their constant monitoring and adherence.

The Criteria of this Standard

The criteria will be adapted to the industry and geographies in which the Centre operates. However, the principles and approach will be similar, in that they will be based on how the company manages against any prevailing regulations and compliances.

The assessment process for uploading information and documentation for review:

Please supply the following documents for the Assessment process:

• BBBEE Certificate
• Tax Compliant Certificate
• Date of your Financial Year End
• POPPI Act Policy
• Occupational Health and Safety Policy
• Transformation Policy
• Noise and work regulations
• Health and Safety at Work.
• Quality control of compliance
• Record keeping
• Internal audit
• Security monitoring
• Storage of sensitive data
• Call recording/screen recording