Finance Colombia: So we’re here in Medellín at your new facility. Tell me, first, let’s talk about why TaskUs chose Colombia. You guys haven’t been in Colombia very long, less than five years, but you’re already growing rapidly down here. What caused you to first look at Colombia and then kind of, you know, go ahead and jump in and commit to the market?

Stephan Daoust: Sure, as an organization, we realized that we wanted to be more global and expand our footprint. Although the company started in the Philippines, we knew that if we wanted to compete on a larger scale, we would have to be in multiple areas around the world.

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When we looked at LATAM, we had opportunities in several countries, but we narrowed the field by looking at the culture, the talent, the opportunity, what our clients may be looking for, as well as in terms of locations, we looked at real estate. So several factors come in when we start looking at where we’re going to establish. So when we came into Colombia, we decided to start in Cali and then expand from there.

But what we found in Cali was that the talent, the richness of the talent, the opportunity was very strong, and the demand from our clients became very strong. We see great performance, we see great opportunity, and the teams are well-educated and work well in terms of supporting. And they have this hunger for development and career, and this allows them to tie our rapid growth with their demands for growth, and it’s a great fit. And that’s why we’ve seen this success in Colombia, and that’s why we continue to invest in Colombia.

Finance Colombia: How do you find, as the senior vice president in charge of different regions, how do you find the ease of doing business in Colombia compared to the other areas, compared to the EMEA region, for example?

Darryl Hill: Yes, what I like about Colombia is that it executes flawlessly in the main, and we deliver a great product for our clients. The clients, when we get them into this part of our global business, they want to grow with us, and that’s important. There are cultural differences across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, and different clients have different needs, okay?

When I think about Europe, the needs are very different from what we have in LATAM. It’s predominantly around what we call multilingual hubs, where TaskUs provides the capability of around 30 languages in Europe. When I look at LATAM, it’s predominantly Spanish and English, and that gives us a different cultural alignment. We’ve got different requirements for our clients. But ultimately, we developed a culture that’s pretty consistent within TaskUs, so the cultural element, for me, is not any different. The client’s requirements are what make a change in terms of where we go next.

Finance Colombia: Yeah, I notice that culture is very, very strong in TaskUs. I noticed that even down in Cali. What do you guys do to nurture that unified culture among your different locations?

Stephan Daoust: Yeah, I mean, it starts with… The co-founders have started with this in mind, right? They started with an opportunity that’s focused on employees, and looking at respecting their needs. When you look at our structure and where we’re located, we’re predominantly located in Tier 2 cities. We do have some Tier 1 cities that we compete in, and the reason why we do that is because we need more specialized skills, or there’s a requirement from a client perspective. But from a TaskUs selection process, we start with looking at Tier 2 cities. Why?

Because we found tremendous talent, we find the opportunity to employ many, and we go to the locations where people are located. They don’t have to move to Bogotá, they can have a job in Medellín, they can have a job in Cali, they can have a job wherever they’re located, wherever they want to be located. So, it diminishes the movement and the pressure of having to try to move to find employment, and it allows people to just grow in the areas that they want to grow. May that be their homes and their families, and have that support as well as grow their careers

So, it starts at the foundation of how we’ve set up. When we look at our sites, we’ve built our sites with culture in mind, making sure that they have their own identity. The sites are named by the employees, not by the organization. So, the employees get to identify their own identity within the sites as well, and want to kind of contribute to growing. They feel more natural here, right?

I’ve heard many times this week, just having these focus groups with our people, that they talk about, you know, “We’re not a number,” right? “We’re treated like humans and it’s personal,” and that interaction. So, it starts at the top, in terms of driving that culture and that support, but the everyday function of our team leaders, our managers, our senior managers, they’re approachable. They support our teams. They have personal conversations, not just about work, but they’re looking to administer life. We look for both passion and purpose within their work, but outside of work as well. And that promotes this culture of, you know, being tied together, wanting to be successful together, rather than the individualism that we often see in this kind of industry.

Finance Colombia: And tell me about, we’re here in Punto Clave (‘Key Point’), and Punto Clave, and I don’t know how much you guys know locally from being in Medellín, but one of the reasons it has that name is because it’s kind of a nice area, but it’s also very central. You’re not really in downtown, but you can also reach both ends (north & south) of the city with the metro and everything like that. How did you guys come to choose the Punto Clave location?

Stephan Daoust: Yeah, I mean, once you come to the location and understand our culture, you know exactly why we picked it. Ease of getting here, right? Our teammates don’t have to travel two or three hours to get here. They don’t have to get into three different modes of transportation to be able to connect and come here. The station is just outside. So the selection process comes with the culture in mind, thinking about how we make this easier for people to come to us, rather than making it difficult, and being in a central location where maybe it’s great for business, and perhaps it looks posh and comfortable for a company. We’re not about that. We’re about the employee experience. So it was very easy to select this process or select this area because of the accessibility that they have to come to work every day, and making that, as much as possible, easier for them.

They have great shops in the area. They got great food. They want to run an errand after they’re done at work; they can do that, right? So there’s plenty of opportunity for them to be here and support. We would never be in a location where it’d be very difficult to get to and people would have to travel hours to get to, because that would just not be our DNA. That’s not who we are.

“So it is critical that we can hire the talent. The talent is here. In some cases, even if it’s a bit raw and we need to develop, that’s great.” – Stephan Daoust

Finance Colombia: What is it that you guys do in your talent process to ensure that you not only cultivate the right talent once you have it, but also select the right talent? You know, I told somebody the other day, talent is hard. Talent is the hardest part of, I think, any business, but especially in a business where… I think this place has a capacity of 800, when you need to hire a lot of people, and there’s competition in the city. What is the method or the ingredient that TaskUs has that sets it apart when it comes to recruiting and developing talent?

Darryl Hill: What’s important is that we align on the profile from the very beginning in terms of the job and the responsibility. And it’s so important that we continue to evolve that profile. So with all the clients that we have all over the world, there are very different requirements. So, for this particular environment that we have in Medellín, we’ve got a very young environment, I would say 20 to 25-year-olds, because I asked the question this week; they are conscious that the BPO industry is evolving, and they want to work somewhere where it’s a little bit different. And the TaskUs secret sauce that we have in Colombia is that we’ve created a perception in the open market that we look after our people.

And every time I ask the same question, what sets us apart? It’s about the culture and the people. And the only other thing I’d add to the last question is that when we select leadership, it’s all about humility. And the people who are most important in this organization are our teammates. And that is clear for all levels of responsibility. And we continue to drive that with our people. Very, very humble approach to how we hire, retain, and develop our people.

Finance Colombia: What is your evaluation? And this is for both of you, so please both of you chime in. As a company that operates globally from the APAC region to the EMEA region to here in the Americas, what is your evaluation of the talent and everything from management potential and technical literacy, and bilingualism of the workforce that you have in Medellín?

Stephan Daoust: Yeah, I mean, one of the selection processes, the level of education and opportunity for us to identify people who want to learn, want to grow, and can commit to growing their career, or want to commit to growing their career. The other part that we do quite well is that we also create our programs to develop people. So we have the academy, which looks at a range of businesses.

So if you want to do quality, there’s a program for that. If you want to do workforce management, there’s a program for that. You want to be a team leader, there’s a program for that, manager… So every position that we have within the business has a development program that’s attached to it. So, what we hire for from a leadership standpoint is really about the capability to learn, the capability to be adaptable, and the capability of caring for people. Those are probably the three fundamental areas that we look at when we look at our leadership.

Much of our leadership is growing internally. If you look at both Darryl and me, we both started as teammates. We won’t mention the years here. It’s been a couple of years, but ultimately, I started as a teammate taking calls. I’ve done every role within the operation. So we create this and we have our leaders understand what it means to be a teammate, what it means to be a team leader, and have some empathy and some compassion on what that role means, and also be able to support the future of that.

So it is critical that we can hire the talent. The talent is here. In some cases, even if it’s a bit raw and we need to develop, that’s great. That’s what we want. We want to be in a position where we create this culture and push that culture into them. And we teach them the rest. At the very end, we can teach them skills. If people want to learn and they’re adaptable, we will teach them whatever they need to learn to be successful in this environment.

Darryl Hill: Yeah. The only thing I’ll add is that our retention at the leadership level is phenomenal, which I have not seen before. And that is, again, going back to the culture, but also we have developed an internal strategy about how we keep those people interested in their current roles. And we give them the opportunities to grow. There is no particular part of my region that doesn’t continually grow. So there’s always an opportunity.

And when we get feedback around surveys, whatever else, one of the fundamental challenges I’ve seen in other organizations is, I have no opportunity to grow. But as we continue to do a good job and our clients appreciate what we’re doing for them, we continue to grow those clients, and people see those opportunities that they may not see in other places, which is important.

Finance Colombia: One of the things I noticed about TaskUs is that it has a very appetizing benefit package. And I hear that you guys give all of your employees, not just the mandatory EPS, but the same plan that the executives get, like the SURA plan, which is, you know, what I have that I pay for. And that’s kind of unheard of. That’s like for bank executives. Tell me about your philosophy. Is that true? And expand upon your philosophy when it comes to taking care of your teammates from the top to the very entry level.

Stephan Daoust: Yeah, and I think it goes back to the culture, right? The fundamental piece of the culture is that we don’t treat our C-suite level any differently than we treat our frontline. Yeah, there are some things that we need to manage, do, and support. But when it comes to benefits, we do provide additional benefits, not just the requirements in the country. And that is one of the reasons why some of the employees have been attracted to us because we’re providing that. There is no difference between the VP level in terms of what he has received in terms of a package at this site and the teammate level.

Why is that? Because the teammates are the most important. The frontline is the most important function. Without them, there’s none of us, right? So we provide them no distinction. We provide them the same access and the same support that we would provide our executive team for that reason alone, because at the very core, we’re about the people, caring about the people who take care of us.

Darryl Hill: Yeah, the only thing I’ll add to that, what I like about TaskUs is that we continue to reassess those benefits, right? In the main, it’s annually, but we get feedback locally. We get expert guidance from our leadership and our teammates in particular. And we take action on their feedback. So if something isn’t working out, we will make a change. We’re not afraid to do that.

Stephan Daoust: Just the interesting thing about that. Darryl and I both spend time in our locations. And when we go into locations, the most important meeting that we have is with our teammates. So we have focus groups. We meet with our teammates directly with no leadership in the room. And we ask them, “What do you love about us? What can we do better? How can we make this thing better for us and you, right? How can we take care of you so we can take care of our clients?”

So we don’t need a suggestion box. I mean, we formally do an opinion survey, but not only when we travel, but the leadership team is responsible for doing them regularly, and to report on them and identify what the opportunities are. Some things are easy to fix. You can do it the same day. Some will take a bit longer, and some will be challenged. But the reality is that’s why we exist. We exist here to make that life better. And our job is to get better every single day. That’s the motto.

Finance Colombia: Impressive. Is there anything that you wanted to mention that I neglected to ask?

Stephan Daoust: No, I think, I mean, ultimately, we want to continue to grow. I think we have a great opportunity to do that. It’s been fantastic so far in terms of Colombia’s support; our partners, when you talk about ease of doing business and supporting, we get media partnerships, we have government partnerships, we have non-governmental partnerships.

We’re just so happy with the support that we’re getting. I think everyone realizes the common ground that we are trying to create an environment of opportunity and careers, and they want to go on that journey with us, so we’re happy to take them along. TaskUs is growing faster than anyone in our space. We continue to grow at double digits. And that is because of the work that our teammates are doing every single day. So I can’t be more pleased with the story in Colombia, and we look forward to growing.

Organized by Bpro, Colombia’s BPO and contact center industry organization.

With another 500 seats on tap in Medellín, the company is already looking to expand again, signalling the fast-moving outsourcer’s commitment to the Andean Nation.

Loren Moss, executive editor of Finance Colombia was able to sit down for a few minutes with Divisional Vice President Luis Barreto at the company’s Medellín grand opening celebration to speak about the early success TaskUs is experiencing in Colombia.

Finance Colombia: Luis, thank you for your time today. Congratulations. You guys are having your official grand opening. I know that you guys have ramped up operations here already. We’re in Medellin, at your facility here in Ruta N, these are lovely new facilities that you’ve had. Maybe if you can tell me a little bit about your footprint in Colombia, where you have operations already?

Luis Barreto: Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, thank you for the congratulations. It’s taken a while because we’ve been operating for a year now in Medellin. We’ve just gone, you know, we just hadn’t had issues with just getting the right people to be able to celebrate this special achievement. But we’re happy that a year in we’re able to do this because it’s double the celebration. Because we’re not just opening, but we’re celebrating success.

We’ve found tremendous success in Medellin. We’ve been able to ramp to fill the seats and we’ve been able to get some very successful clients who are very happy with the service. So Medellin has been great to us. In terms of the footprint, we currently have three locations in Colombia. We opened up our headquarters in Cali back in 2021 where we currently have about 1,200 teammates, that’s what we call our agents.

We just opened up our second site in Cali. This month was their first operating month and that site has 420 seats. It’s going to have about 600 teammates. Then Medellin, as I said, this site has 400 seats, and it’s going to have about 500. And because everything’s already been sold, meaning we already have committed the space to existing clients from here to the end of the year, we’re already branching out to looking at other options. So we are going to be opening up a fourth location which is going to be the second in Medellin, and then hopefully by Q1 of next year, we’re going to be able to announce our third city for our continued expansion.

Finance Colombia: Oh, amazing. You know, I visited your facilities in Cali a couple years ago. Actually, I think it was still during the pandemic, or when things were just starting to open up. Really impressive. You guys put a lot of thought and effort into making appealing workspaces.

I noticed that that seems to be a key part of TaskUs culture. Maybe if you can tell me, I know that it’s not always apropo to talk about individual clients, but if you can talk about the industries that you’re able to serve out of Medellin, or out of Colombia broadly?

Luis Barreto: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s the great thing about that diversity of professionals that we find in the country. You can service any industry, which is pretty much what we do. We currently have about 25 clients in Colombia, which was for four different industries. Most of them are tech innovation related. So fintech, as an example; we provide service for retail, some of the biggest retail brands, fashion brands in the world are serviced out of Colombia. We also have food delivery apps. So it’s really a blend, and we don’t have a specific target because, you know, through our recruiting process, we’re able to identify skilled skillsets and aptitudes within our candidates to be able to route them into what industry or what program they would do best.

So, because the servicing industry and the BPO industry is so diverse, you do need to be able to have that ability to be flexible in terms of the offering, because you can be in one industry, but that industry requires different skills. So you can use social media management, back office, chat, e-mail; or it could be all voice, customer service, billing, transaction.

So to say that we do one, or that we focus or that we have a strength on one, is difficult because we’re just a very diverse solution-oriented company and we’ve found quick success with being able to service everything out of Colombia. That’s why we keep growing.

Finance Colombia: So you do more than just customer contact, you’re doing back-office services and other types. Well, tell me about some of those other types of services. Aside from voice and aside from chat, what are the other services that you provide to your corporate clients?

Luis Barreto: Yeah. So I think an interesting thing that’s in the industry and, you know, just the level of services that the industry is going to, we’re seeing a lot of growth in the content moderation space, trust and safety space, which is really just protecting the social media platforms from bad intentions. So I would say that that’s one specific area where we’re focusing our growth, and that you’re going to see big growth from us in terms of the percentage of the work that we do currently to migrate into that.

But on top of that, we do back office like you said, we do messaging, we do e-mail, chat work… 50-60% it’s still voice because that’s still the preferred communication channel for most of our clients. But everybody is slowly migrating to more digital channels.

Finance Colombia: Right.

Luis Barreto: Which is a part of our strategy as well. You know, we’re a digital company. We take pride in being able to partner with some of the most innovative companies in the world. And as you know, we have a very entrepreneurial spirit, which means that we’re always going to be happy to work with a company, regardless of the size. If they have a desire to learn of the BPO and how to best service their clients, we’re going to partner, we’re going to put our technology forward, and our experience, to make sure that we build the best customer experience that they need for their companies.

Finance Colombia: I’ve noticed that TaskUs is kind of already a large company, global, you know, you’re in all sectors around the globe. But it still has kind of a startup feel to it. It has kind of a startup attitude to it, you would say.

Luis Barreto: Yes. We do, yeah. Absolutely. And I think it’s: 1—Our founders and CEO and president are very young. So they’re very well up to date with innovation, and they still consider themselves a startup because of the fact that it’s still growing, it’s still growing, still attracting.  And, you know, the fact that we help a lot of startups begin their journey into the CX experience is also the reason why we keep our vision, our mission, and our brand, similar and close to that. So, you know, not to say that we don’t focus on any specific market, but we do gravitate towards companies that are starting up, innovation, tech, instead of the larger, more traditional services like banking or telco. The majority of our footprint is in startups and tech companies.

Finance Colombia: You know, I remember talking to one of the huge traditional customer experience outsourcers one time, one of their top people told me that if it’s under 100 FTE (full-time equivalent seats), their salespeople don’t even get compensated on it.

Luis Barreto: Yeah [Laughs.]

Finance Colombia: Because they only want to talk to the giant—they are a giant multinational, they only want to talk to other giant multinationals. But it’s interesting how I’ve seen companies who start with startups, and some startups are going to fail and that’s just kind of how it is. But some…I know a company that started with Lyft, and they had five seats and now that’s a major client for them, for example. And so I’ve seen where…you know, it’s great to hear that you guys give an opportunity to companies that are scrappy startups and things like that and work. And by the way, I have no idea if you guys have Lyft, that was a company that’s not here in Colombia that I was mentioning. I know that they use multiple outsourcing partners, and so if they use you guys, you know, that was by coincidence, by the way.

Luis Barreto: That’s fine.

Finance Colombia: But that’s an interesting thing, because you see a lot of times these become high-growth companies and also high-potential companies. And that’s kind of part of that entrepreneurial spirit.

And I think Colombia, especially Medellin, has some of that, Ruta N is a business incubator.

Luis Barreto: It is, yeah.

Finance Colombia: They welcome established businesses like you guys. But if we go over across the way into the other tower, you’re going to have startups with a single person and they’ve got something for those people, and they’ve got startups that have gotten their first parts of funding and things like that. And the city’s behind them. And then you also see here, the private sector is kind of behind the city. There’s quite a partnership.

And as you and I both…neither one of us are from Colombia. Tell me about your impression of what you’ve seen in Colombia broadly, as far as the business climate. And then specifically, I don’t want to get you in trouble knowing that you’re, you know, team Cali. So I know you can’t, you know, be too nice, but if you could maybe give your impression of the business climate in Colombia and then let’s say Medellin and Cali.

Luis Barreto: Yeah, absolutely. So first I want to tackle the startup common, which I think it’s… yes, the bigger players tend to have a standard of business size to which they agree to do business with. Part of what we do and we differentiate, because, you know, as I mentioned before, we are considered startup and we love being able to work with startups to build their CX journey. So it’s not that they come with five seats, maybe they have zero seats and they want to build everything from scratch with us. We will take it.

“And what I’ve seen is that the Colombian talent, the infrastructure, the political stability, the need for these kinds of opportunities has been tremendous.” – Luis Barreto

Finance Colombia: Wow.

Luis Barreto: We will partner and we will invest in a long-term relationship because that’s really how you gain long-term relationships, and that’s really how our founders built this business, working with startups like that.

The second is, yes, I’m a foreigner. And I do say that I’m a proud Colombian resident now because I love the country. It’s been tremendously good for me and my family because, you know, the industry, I’ve seen the industry grow so much. And what I’ve seen is that the Colombian talent, the infrastructure, the political stability, the need for these kinds of opportunities has been tremendous. When I first landed in Colombia, it was probably only 10 years (into) outsourcing. And when I mean outsourcing, to the US, because now this is their primary market. Now, it’s insane the amount of growth. And to me, Colombia has been an exceptional success story that is very rarely seen. I mean, at least in LATAM, you don’t see any other story like this. You might see stories, you know, in the Philippines and India, but not like this in LATAM. And I think again, it’s because Colombians are by nature, you know, very towards service, like it’s in their nature, it’s in their blood.

Finance Colombia: Yes. “¡Para servirle!” That’s the saying here.

Luis Barreto: “Para servirle,” yes. “Bien pueda.” It’s like, it’s very natural. So obviously the Tier 1 and just the soft skills that you need to be able to do this business are there from the get go. Everything else, the skillsets and everything, it comes. In other regions, it’s more difficult, right? You have to spend a little bit more time and effort to engrave some, you know, basic skills of communication and engagement, here is very flawless. And then from a city perspective, I think, you know, obviously I don’t have a preference. I think…I live in Cali, my wife and I prefer the city, but every city has its charm and every city has its business purpose. Cali is less mature in the market in regards to BPO. It’s actually relatively unknown for other companies right now.

Finance Colombia: Right.

Luis Barreto: We know TaskUs is the biggest BPO in Cali, which we only were able to achieve because we took a chance, we saw potential and we decided to invest and we’re now taking a lot of benefit from it. Because competitors try to come, they can’t match your offers, they can’t match your benefits. So it’s been great because it’s where we positioned this.

And you know, Cali right now is the headquarters for everything Colombia, and not just Colombia, but regionally, including Mexico, because my responsibility extends to Mexico. And because of the talent and I would say the need for better career opportunities has driven great talent towards our industry in Cali.

Now Medellin obviously, it’s a great success story as well on its own because this one is…I call it a more specialized, more complex work, more, you know, specific targeted clients. So when you talk about innovation, when you talk about these tech higher-paying lines of business, this is a better option. So obviously, we service everything out of all of our sites, but there is some kind of strategy towards what city fits best for the client, and that’s something that we want to build and continue to sustain as part of our strategy growth in Colombia.

Finance Colombia: Got it. You’ve been very generous with your time. And you’re right, Medellin kind of sees itself, it kind of wants to be the Silicon Valley of Latin America. And I think it to a large degree deserves that. There’s competition with places like Costa Rica, places like Uruguay, but really there’s an established tech scene here. I’m always reading about companies or writing about companies that have gotten funded, that have gone on to greater things when it comes to tech and innovation. My last question for you is, I would imagine that a large percentage of your business requires bilingual skills, in terms of the agents. I would imagine that, I mean there’s always some agents that can do everything in Spanish, but I would imagine that TaskUs being a US-based company, a lot of the skills need to be bilingual. How easy or difficult has it been to hire bilingual talent here in Colombia?

Luis Barreto: Yeah. Great question. Obviously, the BPO industry has grown in Colombia mostly because of nearshoring support, we’re supporting mostly companies in the US, which means that it’s got to have an English component. Right now 90% of the work that we do in Colombia is English. We have about 8% Spanish and then 2% Portuguese, French. So we do still have a little bit of a blend now. In terms of the quality and the quantity of the English, it’s been great. I mean, I think the country has recognized the need for English, that English skills is something that needs to be built-in from a younger age. And we’ve seen a lot of the programs that I started hearing about back in 2016, 2017 when I first came, starting to materialize and starting to really give, you know, candidates to our funnel, which is fantastic. So it is a challenge because obviously the industry is now huge. There’s… Over 700,000 Colombians work in the sector, probably 200 – 300,000 work in US work. So the talent pool is reducing. But what’s great is that every single city that I’ve seen, or that we work with and that we partner with, has a clear path towards strategy to help, you know, put candidates and build candidates so that they can benefit from the opportunities of growth, opportunities of a job. So we feel confident that we are going to be able to continue to grow, not by butchering: Meaning, not by going and stealing talent, but by benefiting from the different growth pools that every region is building now. You know, there’s a reason why we’re not involved with that. We feel Bogota is a little bit more complex, a little bit more saturated. It’s a different quality of life. So we prefer the Tier 2, Tier 3 cities, where we’ve found more success or more appealing offers, and attracts the talent that we need.

Finance Colombia: It makes sense. I mean, if you were going to open up a contact center in the US, you probably wouldn’t go to Manhattan or Los Angeles, but you would look at other places maybe, you know, upstate New York or somewhere in Eastern California, of course, obviously the Heartland and different places like that. So that strategy makes sense. You’ve been wonderful with your time. I know that there’s a party going on downstairs and I don’t want to keep you from it and I don’t want to keep myself from it either. So, you guys, the hospitality is amazing. So thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Luis Barreto: It’s been a pleasure, thank you very much for having me.

TaskUs, which focuses on digital services, CX solutions, artificial intelligence, and content security, has opened its third operations center in Colombia and the first in Medellín, located in the Ruta-N business incubation complex. The new Medellín facility is in addition to two TaskUs facilities in Cali, Colombia.

The new Medellín facility is in addition to two TaskUs facilities in Cali, Colombia.

Operational for a year, The Gallery has already generated over 400 direct jobs and provides bilingual support to clients mainly in the United States. “We are pleased to be in Medellín. At TaskUs, we invest in the learning and development of our people, equipping leaders and potential leaders with necessary skills and providing online learning resources available anytime,” said Pablo González, Vice President of Operations for TaskUs Colombia.

Carmen Caballero, president of ProColombia, stated, “The expansion of TaskUs in Colombia reflects global investors’ confidence in the country. TaskUs bets on our talent and contributes to its growth and development. ProColombia and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism will continue to support TaskUs in their future plans and expansion in our territory.”

María Fernanda Galeano, Secretary of Economic Development of Medellín, added, “The arrival of TaskUs in Medellín is significant for our district, not only in terms of employment and economic development but also as a key boost to strengthen our business ecosystem. The opening of The Gallery in Ruta N marks the start of a strategic collaboration benefiting both the local community and the company, reaffirming Medellín as an attractive destination for international investments.”

The Gallery features collaborative and modern workspaces, including recreational areas in a highly innovative environment, a concept TaskUs is known for globally, according to González. TaskUs, which began Colombian operations in Cali in 2021, now has two sites in that city, generating over 2,000 qualified jobs in Colombia, serving clients in sectors such as health, retail, e-commerce, tourism, travel, and technology.

“TaskUs is expanding its operations with the opening of a second office in Medellín, offering 700 new job opportunities,” stated Luis Barreto, Vice President of TaskUs for LATAM. TaskUs is actively hiring bilingual professionals for its Medellín office. Interested candidates can apply and find detailed position information on TaskUs’s social media @taskuscolombia.

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• Ruta-N and SAP Announce Alliance To Support Entrepreneurship and Investment in Medellín
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“This alliance reflects our shared commitment to promote economic and social development through technology,” said Perilla, accompanied by Ruta-N’s executive director Carolina Londoño.

SAP’s President for the Northern Region of Latin America and The Caribbean, Marcela Perilla (Photo: Loren Moss)

“This strategic alliance represents a unique opportunity for the more than 460 companies in Medellín and the digital talent that today makes up our ecosystem, providing them access to world-class resources and knowledge,” said Londoño.

Companies that have participated in Ruta-N’s development and entrepreneurship programs will have the opportunity to receive mentoring in innovation through a program called Startup Innovation Journey, which is designed to support the growth and expansion of startups through access to technology and market opportunities offered by SAP.

SAP is Europe’s largest enterprise software provider and produces enterprise resource planning (ERP) software along with other business software solutions for global companies, including human resources, supply chain, and customer experience solutions.

The company says the decision was a strategic move to tap into the region’s technology labor pool and strengthen Horatio’s global operations, especially Horatio’s Content Moderation operations.

“Latin America holds immense potential for the technology industry and we believe that we can add significant value to businesses in this region. We look forward to building strong partnerships, collaborating with local talent, and contributing to the growth of the region’s ecosystem,” said José Herrera, CEO and co-founder of Horatio.

In 2023, Horatio ranked number eight on Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies in the Northeast and last month Horatio was ranked as the number one customer contact center in the Dominican Republic by business publication, Revista Mercado. Earlier this year, Horatio opened a new 92,000 square feet contact center in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

“Colombia has experienced astonishing expansion in CX and technology in recent years and we are thrilled Horatio will now be a part of this growing sector which makes up nearly 15% of their country’s service exports,” said Jared Karson, CFO and co-founder of Horatio.

“Bogota is rapidly emerging as a major hub for technology and innovation. The city offers a highly skilled workforce, favorable business environment, and a thriving startup ecosystem.”

UPDATE: We finally did receive a follow up from the store call the evening of December 12th, the following week.

For example, in Colombia it is maybe the only reliable destination for American-style bacon, cottage cheese, Heinz pickle relish, real cheddar cheese, Tide laundry detergent, Downy fabric softener, and ahem…toilet paper that doesn’t “melt in your hand.” The retailer also features wild caught salmon, USDA meat cuts including whole racks of ribs, and in season, one can find whole turkeys, American hams, and even frozen cranberries. PriceSmart also offers a wide variety of popular domestic brands in the locales where it operates.

The company has been expanding its offering, mirroring amenities common in US big-box retail. In Medellín there is an in-store eyeglass offering and an audiologist who can offer hearing aids. In the garage there is a tire sales and installation shop.

Despite the company’s success, as a publicly traded company, it is strangely media-shy. Finance Colombia has reached out many times to discuss the firm’s growth and success over the years, but they have always declined to be interviewed or even comment. There is no problem there, some companies are secretive by nature, but that’s odd for consumer facing brands. We have reached out to both headquarters in the US and their Panamá based communications professional in the past

A lack of communication is also not good for customers. PriceSmart offers major appliances along with its staples and consumer packaged goods. When this customer purchased a large Mabe (a domestic Colombian brand) freezer—to fill with Pricesmart hams and turkeys no doubt—he checked with the PriceSmart delivery dispatch desk at the front of the store to confirm that it could be delivered by the next Tuesday. The dispatcher spent a few minutes in her computer before confirming that it could.

The purchase was made, along with several hundred dollars of meat and poultry, and Tuesday’s schedule was cleared in anticipation of the big delivery. When Tuesday came and went, we went to call Pricesmart but discovered alarmingly, there is no phone number for the store…for any Pricesmart store! No freezer, no phone number!

I would have returned to the store in person to inquire, but we live outside of the city, over an hour away. Our monthly visits down into the city to Pricesmart have always been whole-day events where we also make restaurant reservations, do other shopping, and run errands, but with the Pricesmart visit the centerpiece of the day’s agenda.

There was an email address for customer service, so we wrote. Three hours later, we got an email from Ivan, the “Outstanding Experience Specialist” asking for a copy of our receipt which was sent.

Then more silence.

Two hours later, we wrote back (in Spanish): “Is there any news? We need our freezer, please.”

90 minutes later, Ivan wrote back (in Spanish): “Thank you for contacting us. We inform you that we have escalated your case to our operations department with the goal of reviewing where we are in the delivery of your product. Whatever other case or comment, don’t doubt in contacting me, I’m here to serve you.”

Meanwhile, my wife and I both were trying to use the chat function built into their smartphone app, but it was a bot, not a real person, and useless. When a consumer company refuses to be contacted by voice, it tells you that service isn’t the priority.

I found that if you kept at it enough, something triggered in the chat app and eventually a support agent took over the chat. He or she (not sure) also asked for a copy of the receipt and said to wait a few minutes. Returning to the chat, he said they had no record of the order or purchase and were going to have to search receipts of the previous weekend to see if they could find anything that corresponded to our purchase!

So now alarmed, as Pricesmart had our several hundred dollars for the appliance but did not seem to have any idea where it was, or even a record of the purchase. We wrote Ivan, the “Outstanding Experience Specialist” back (again, in Spanish):

“Is our freezer coming today? It is now more than a day late, and nobody will show their face. We can’t call. I spent (several hundred dollars on an appliance and they promised it yesterday, and nobody called, or anything! And now nobody knows where it is?”

We never heard from Ivan the “Outstanding Experience Specialist” again.

In fact, nobody from Pricesmart ever responded, answered, followed up, or anything whatsoever.

What did happen, fortunately, is we were contacted the next day (two days after delivery was promised) by factory representatives from Mabe, the manufacturer. They called and asked if Saturday would work for delivery. When we told them that we were promised delivery two days earlier, they said that only that day, Thursday, did they receive the order from Pricesmart, meaning nobody ever sent it!

Mabe showed up as they promised Saturday morning with the machine in good working order, but we never heard again from Pricesmart. We are still waiting for them to respond to our email, or our chat. Or say “we are sorry, we screwed up,” or anything whatsoever.

So what is our takeaway?  We have been paying Pricesmart members for several years now, and for certain items, there are few alternative options. Big ticket appliances are not one of them, as there are many competing alternatives. We did buy a dishwasher from Pricesmart a few years ago, but it was the floor demo, so we arranged our own transportation that time.

While we will likely remain members and continue to shop regularly, I am now hesitant about any purchase that requires service and customer support due to the lack of ability to communicate with anyone via telephone, the lack of responsiveness even via email or chat (we are still waiting!), and the logistical failures in simply not honoring commitments to deliver purchased items in a timely fashion. While mistakes do happen, the failure to communicate seems to say that service and satisfaction are not priorities.

Hopefully the company improves. They have a good thing going, little direct competition when it comes to their business model and have been expanding rapidly. They have a second Medellín store set to open in a few months. Growth is hard, and many companies, lose their mojo as they expand. This experience has exposed a big weakness in their model that we hope they fix, for the good of their employees, shareholders, and customers.

The new facility is on Las Vegas Avenue in the Ciudad Del Rio business district, and serves clients such as Macy’s and Etraveli Group.

Concentrix has 290,000 employees in 40 countries.

“We chose Medellin because it’s the innovation center of Colombia, in addition to its talent and willingness to provide an excellent customer service experience; we came to contribute to the socioeconomic growth of this city by joining the technological and digital development that characterizes the capital of Antioquia” said Concentrix’s country manager in Colombia, Clara María Bernal (above photo).

“In Medellín we are very happy with the arrival of Concentrix, one of the largest companies in the world in the BPO sector. This North American capital company will generate 600 new jobs this year, and they have a projection for 2023 of 1,500 new jobs. This is a great opportunity for hundreds of young people in Medellin and is the confidence that has been generated in recent years in a city where flourishing is possible,” said Jonathan Ballesteros, director of Local and International Relations of local investment promotion agency ACI Medellín.

Bilingual individuals in metropolitan Medellín interested in applying for positions can click here. Agent positions pay $2,200,000 COP per month for a 42-hour workweek.

In addition to ACI Medellín, Concentrix in a statement acknowledged the support of local entities in their site selection such as RutaN, ProColombia, SENA, and the Antioquia governor’s administration.

Long-time CX Industry luminary Shelli Ryan was on hand, and was kind enough to spend a few minutes with Executive Editor Loren Moss of Finance Colombia and Cognitive Business News to talk about the specific challenges the BPO & CX sector faces when marketing up and down the hemisphere, along with some exciting new things she is doing in the field of blockchain as applied to customer experience.

Finance Colombia:  I’m here with Shelli Ryan. Shelli is a colleague and a friend. It’s great to see you here in sunny Cartagena. We’re on the second day of the CX Summit, which is the largest–. I think it’s the largest customer experience and BPO industry event in Latin America, certainly in Colombia. So, first, it’s great to see you down here.

Shelli Ryan: It’s been a while. I think the last time we were in Windsor.

Finance Colombia:  Right, at Peter Ryan’s thing, exactly. So tell me, this is, I think, the first time I’ve seen you at the CX Summit. Tell me a little bit about why you decided to come and your first impressions of the summit.

Shelli Ryan: It is a fantastic organization (BPro); I have to say first of all. I was shocked at how many people were here, I mean over 700 people, and the best thing about it is that it wasn’t like old people, like you and me, they were young people, and that’s really what we need in the BPO industry as we look at omnichannel, we’re looking at the Metaverse and that really interested me because all the sessions we’re talking about, those things and more and that’s really what’s driving business today.

Finance Colombia:  It’s interesting because you saw some of the speakers, and even talking to some of the exhibitors, they’re doing these innovative things. They’re talking about how blockchain is being applied in the contact center, and that’s something I honestly never thought of. How these different technologies—distributed finance—and then how do you apply customer experience to these new modalities of not just commerce but of investment. People are now using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as stores of value, and because they’re not traditional banks, people still need some type of customer service, but it’s not traditional because it’s distributed and that creates a whole new layer of challenges, right?

Shelli Ryan: Yes, and actually blockchain is the next technology for call centers. It is one that’s going to help secure omnichannel, secure the transactions and the workforce management. All that and above, I think it’s really going to be something we have to take a look at.

Finance Colombia:  One of the things I wanted to ask you is…Let’s talk about your company because I know you have a considerable organization. You have some very interesting specialties that are relevant not just to BPO but really to the professional services industry. Give me an idea of what Ad Hoc Communications does.

Shelli Ryan: We do a little bit of everything, quite frankly. I have to say If you think about it, we are the ones that are marketing departments in a box for B2B, B2C and business services outsourcers, call centers in particular. If we’re in talking about call centers, and really what we do is we help them build demand by communicating, build demand by helping them with a sales channel, build demand by helping them scale in different geographies; so the reason why we’re particularly interested in Latin America is that they are looking for sales scalability in North America and we’re the ones that they usually call to help build their presence in North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and APAC,  and those are the places where we have our team members.

And Ad Hoc’s been in business for now 26 years, and prior to that, I was in financial services and online banking, ATM, EFT, ACH, all of that great vernacular if you will, and so all of those talents are put to use in helping financial services, telecommunications, travel, all those verticals that…Call centers, in particular, the ones that you and I work with, want to scale with, and so Ad Hoc is one.

The reason why I named the company Ad Hoc, as the founder and the owner, is because we’re “on demand.” They can turn us on, turn us off, and that’s very attractive to the LatAm marketplace, but also very attractive to the outsourcing community in general because they tend to offshore some of their marketing executives and their resources, and sometimes you just need a little more horsepower, and we bring that.

Finance Colombia:  You said something really interesting. Working a lot in Latin America and the Caribbean, I see where companies that are based down here often falter or struggle as they try to enter the US market, because even though there is a strong cultural affinity, there are nuances that cause them to struggle. The marketing, the flavor of marketing, if you will, is a little bit different. It’s fascinating because you’ll see the big global companies get it and they understand that and they…Just like McDonald’s tailors their menu a little bit for different markets, we have to tailor not just our marketing but our approach, even our sales approach, if we’re going to go and approach somebody and say, “Let’s go to lunch and let’s go do some business”, that’s very different, not just say from Colombia to the US, but from Mexico to Colombia, avery different business culture.

Shelli Ryan: Yeah. Here’s where I see they fall and this is often very predictable. One is they enter the market and they hire a bunch of salespeople, they’re unsupported, and then they say, “Well, we’ll hire an inside sales or a cold calling team”, but they have no marketing and no one knows who they are, and so I always counsel them to do the marketing first because then you would have the leads in the demand gen and then bring the salespeople.

“The reason why we’re particularly interested in Latin America is that they are looking for sales scalability in North America and we’re the ones that they usually call.”- Shelli Ryan

Then they also hire brokers, and you and I and Peter Ryan have talked about this, ad nauseum, is that it doesn’t work, frankly. You need to have an integrated marketing plan where there’s some content, there’s some thought leadership, there might be some events, there might be, you know, demand gen, a whole integrated campaign. And then, lastly, a lot of times they don’t put the budget behind it and that’s really key, so it doesn’t have to cost a fortune, but you do have to put an investment into your marketing so that your sales guys are properly supported.

Finance Colombia:  And understand how marketing works too. Some people think that marketing works like, “OK, I put an ad in the paper for one week and nobody called me yet, it must have failed. Maybe it failed, you know? I put one ad on the radio.”

Shelli Ryan: Exactly. Right. And ads are interesting too because a lot of the newer marketers are putting a lot of money into digital: Google ads, Facebook ads, and waiting for the phone to ring. It’s not going to, right? Especially in our industry, it’s a relationship type industry. It’s who you know. Your reputation and then also what’s your value, what’s your value proposition,  and that last one’s pretty keen, as you know as a thought leader yourself, you have to have the messaging straightened out before you go sell yourself, and that’s another thing that we do a lot of with companies around the world, is we help them with their messaging, what is it that makes them so different, what is that makes them unique, what’s the differentiator, and then what’s their value prop, and that’s key.

Finance Colombia:  Right. I think one of the things that companies have to understand is that marketing prepares the prospect, OK? So that when the sales process begins, it’s not the sales process, there is a prospect that is prepared and that is familiar and that is open to receiving your story, and to understanding, and to listening to what you have to offer, OK? But if you call me up and say, “Who are you?” Then if I’m the salesperson and I have to do the job of marketing and at least you’ve never even heard of me, then I’m going to have more of a struggle, and so marketing really is to pave the way, and that’s where, like you said, a lot of companies down here either try to do it on the cheap.

You know, you and I have both had people call us up and say, “Look, why don’t you give us some leads?”, and I’ll say: “So in other words, let me rephrase that—you want me to give you free marketing qualified leads and not pay for them and only get paid if you happen to do something down the road.”

Shelli Ryan: But look, here’s the other thing that’s probably pretty key. It’s that a lot of the companies who want to scale in the States, they don’t know who their buyers are, you know? So what they do is they say, “Oh, just market to anybody.” But are they the ones you want to and will they buy from you? And so personas are very important.

Finance Colombia:  The Buyer persona.

Shelli Ryan: Exactly. And so I think that would be another tip, if we were talking about tips, right? You know, the messaging, the personas, the integrated plan, but also having that face-to-face connection with your buyers, because it’s pretty key, especially in this industry.

Finance Colombia:  Absolutely. Now help me understand just concisely. Companies should contact Ad Hoc Communications when…What does that company look like and what is that situation that they’re facing? What’s the ideal time that we need to reach to Shelli and Ad Hoc?

Shelli Ryan: Pick up the red phone right when you want to scale, when you want to go global, when you might have an issue with your messaging, you know? The phones aren’t ringing or we have a situation where maybe a product isn’t moving as quickly as it needs to, because quite frankly it might be that we need to re-swizzle what’s been said about the product, the service, the company, what have you. And then just quite frankly the demand generation. You need to create leads. Usually, our profile is a mid-market company in a business services industry. Call center is one (sector) in particular, but also the B2B, B2C, technology companies that may be either a startup or a mid-market, but then also may be a bigger technology company that needs to pivot, needs to rotate, but needs to rotate it pretty fast.

Finance Colombia:  OK. Now I understand. You know, we talked about mid-market companies, but I know that you’ve done some exciting things with some of these new…I don’t know what they call it, web 3.0 companies, and you’re in some pretty cool things, so let’s kind of, get outside the box, because I know that’s sort of like a separate segment for you. But let’s go ahead and talk about that a little bit, and maybe if you want to touch on what you’re doing and who it might be, who might be interested in finding out more about it.

Shelli Ryan: Yeah. Web 3. I mean, we all have to realize that it is coming and it is coming fast, so the Metaverse and NFTs and crypto and blockchain. We have a separate company, at least I have a separate company that helps call centers in particular implement blockchain in their organization, and so we work with them to not only implement it but also to train their employees and their stakeholders so they understand that their job isn’t at stake and they’re not going to be shut out the door, but maybe even retrained into a blockchain enabled position.

I think the call center industry looks at blockchain as the next thing they’re going to put on their RFP list. Are you ISO certified? Are you PCI certified? Are you blockchain certified? And we’re the only ones in the world—the CX Blockchain Institute is the company name—only ones in the world who will certify call centers for blockchain, being blockchain ready, and then recertify them every year to make sure that they’re continuously on the leading edge.

Finance Colombia:  That’s really important because you can either disrupt or be disrupted.

Shelli Ryan: That’s right. Well, that’s a differentiator. It’s certainly a differentiator because as you look at all the call centers now, some of them pretty much look the same, and people, technology and process is what they always say. But if you have blockchain, that’s a game changer.

Finance Colombia:  Wow. And like you said, I think we saw such a young crowd here, which is—Not that we’re old yet, but still, it’s really cool because I think that a lot of these guys get excited about this and really want to participate. How can people reach your organization?

Shelli Ryan: So, our website for Ad Hoc is https://adhoccr.com/  and if they want a little more information about the blockchain institute, it is https://www.cxblockchain.org/

Finance Colombia:  Wonderful. Thanks so much for your time.

Shelli Ryan: Thanks!