Written by: Stijn Lathouwers , CEO & Shareholder at Custom Connect International & Groep
The BPO market is shifting. And for once, it is shifting towards exactly where we are standing.
Custom Connect operates delivery sites in Poland and South Africa, with a broader presence across Europe. That footprint was not an accident. It was a deliberate architecture, built around a belief that European and UK businesses would increasingly demand something traditional offshore models were never designed to deliver: genuine English-language quality, real multilingual European depth, time-zone alignment, and operational resilience.
Independent research is now confirming what we have known for years.
The market has spoken — and it is saying South Africa and Poland
Ryan Advisory’s 2026 CX Technology and Global Services Survey polled 815 enterprise customer management decision-makers across 12 global markets. India ranked first. The Philippines second. Tied in third place: Poland and South Africa.
That result is not a surprise to us. But it is a powerful validation. These are not emerging destinations tentatively finding their feet. They are proven, enterprise-endorsed delivery locations — rated by the most sophisticated CX buyers in the world.
Analysis of UK buying trends adds further weight. British businesses are increasingly choosing South Africa and Poland for outsourced customer service — driven by rising domestic wage pressure, persistent labour shortages, and the demand for round-the-clock coverage. Quality, time-zone overlap and compliance readiness are now the primary decision drivers, not cost alone.
“The shift from traditional Asian destinations to new emerging destinations is attributable to attributes such as quality, time zone overlap, and compliance readiness. These carry more weight than the cost advantage, which is smaller.”
Londonlovesbusiness, cited by Ziptone (2024)
South Africa: where English CX truly lives
We did not choose South Africa primarily for cost, though the 40–60% savings against UK operational costs are significant. We chose it because of something that cannot be manufactured: a genuine cultural and linguistic affinity with British customers.
South African agents do not approximate the British customer experience. They understand it instinctively. The time zone aligns tightly with UK office hours. The English is native, warm and natural. These qualities show up in NPS scores, first-contact resolution, and customer satisfaction — the metrics that build brand loyalty rather than just close tickets.
South Africa has held a global top-three position since 2022 — the year it tied with India for number one. Its current standing reflects consolidated, proven strength.
Poland: the multilingual engine for Europe
Our Poland operation serves a different need, with equal depth. For European and UK businesses with technically complex support requirements — SaaS, system integrations, multi-language customer bases — Poland provides something no single offshore destination can match: genuine multilingual breadth alongside full EU regulatory alignment.
Polish GDPR compliance is not a box-tick. It removes an entire layer of legal and operational risk. Combined with minimal time-zone difference from Western Europe and a highly educated talent pool, Poland has become the premium choice for complex, high-value CX delivery.
The 2026 survey confirms it: Poland ranked second in Germany, and top five in both the UK and Italy.
One partner. Both covered.
The traditional approach to supporting both English-speaking and multilingual European customers was to fragment delivery across multiple vendors. One for English. Others for each language cluster. A separate layer for escalation. It was expensive, hard to manage, and produced inconsistent experiences.
Custom Connect’s model resolves this. A single integrated partner across both locations — consistent processes, shared technology, aligned quality frameworks. English contacts handled in South Africa. Multilingual European contacts handled from Poland. One operation, not two trying to coordinate across a vendor boundary.
The customer experiences it as seamless. Same brand voice. Same quality standards. Same escalation paths. That coherence is only possible when both sites are genuinely integrated — not just theoretically aligned.
Built for resilience, not just efficiency
The BPO industry has learned hard lessons from the pandemic, from geopolitical disruption, from concentration risk. Ryan Advisory put it plainly in their 2026 analysis:
“Offshoring strategies must be dynamic. Risk must be mitigated by shifting capacity to not only locations seen as desirable, but also to ones that provide stable operating environments, solid infrastructure and solid pools of talent.”
Ryan Advisory, 2026 CX Technology & Global Services Survey
Custom Connect’s geographic model is the practical expression of that principle:
The moment we have been building towards
We are not pivoting to meet a trend. We are not adapting a legacy model. The market has moved to where Custom Connect was already standing.
For European and UK businesses looking for a CX delivery model that is excellent in English, genuinely capable across European languages, compliant, resilient, and managed by a single accountable partner — this is what we were built for.
If you are reviewing your customer experience delivery model, we would welcome the conversation.
Sources
Ryan Advisory — 2026 CX Technology & Global Services Survey
Ziptone — British companies increasingly moving customer service to South Africa, Poland and Ukraine