As we heard repeatedly at SiGMA LATAM in September, the LATAM region is not a monolith. Each country has its own culture, and catering to those different requirements requires some planning. We learned from an expert as our Becky Liggero Fontana sat down with Florencia Brancato, Marketing Consultant for LATAM, to understand what works.
Liggero Fontana began by asking where companies should consider placing their call centers. “For some companies, something is working, and for others its different,” Brancato responded. “For example, one of the companies that I used to work, they have a call center here in Uruguay, but they focus only in Portuguese and Spanish speaking people. When you want to do it more globally, you need someone to speak English as well or other language.”
Brancato gave her tips on how to offer the right languages, but also with the right dialects. “My recommendation is to have it locally in any country of LATAM because they speak Spanish and also you have people who can speak Portuguese,” she said. “The main thing is the Portuguese need to be from Brazil, not from Portugal, and the Spanish need to be from LATAM, not from Spain, otherwise its going to be difficult.”
That’s because if you bring in people from the wrong country with the wrong dialect, locals won’t be able to understand them. She advised planning ahead. “First of all, you need to know exactly what is going to be your focus,” she said. “If your markets are going to be in Mexico, Columbia, Peru, well focus on that, have people from there to answer the questions.”
One repeated sentiment from SiGMA LATAM that Brancato wanted to correct was how new the LATAM market feels.“I think Brazil is the oldest market in the region which is the most developed at the moment,” she said, as an example. She’s been serving the LATAM market for a long time, and she said that while the industry isn’t built up yet, locals know what they want.
The problem though, is finding talented people to offer it. Well trained senior staff are still hard to come by, and she offered advice for those easing themselves in. “It’s good to have people on site, like a consultant or someone who can advise you,” she said. “If you are going to move here, stay with people here. Talk with people, see what they’re saying, check the difficulties that they have, go to the call center, stay one morning there and check what the customers are saying. For me, it’s the best recommendation, listen.”
Watch the entire interview to get more insights on which areas of LATAM offer the most advantages, and how to localize your offering to the needs of each country. And don’t forget to subscribe to the CalvinAyre.com YouTube channel to see all our new interviews as soon as they’re published.
