KINGSTON, Jamaica – Chairman and chief executive officer of itelBPO Solutions, Yoni Epstein says the Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices 2022 Customer Value Leadership Award recently won by the company reaffirms its focus on its customers and employees.

Epstein said the award also signals that individuals can achieve anything once their minds are set towards that goal.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan, a global consultancy firm, presents its widely recognised customer service award to companies that demonstrate excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers, with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products.

The firm lauds itel’s unique focus on augmenting the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and customer base expansion.

Epstein, in an interview with OBSERVER ONLINE on Wednesday, expressed delight with the recognition.

“It is always great to win an award, even better when international bodies are the ones giving you the award, understanding the work that you’re doing in supporting your clients, supporting your staff and providing exemplary customer service, in particular, [especially] in a business that is so competitive and led by international companies,” he said.

“Being a Caribbean, Jamaica-born entity that operates in nine countries with over 6,000 employees, it really shows that the sky is the limit and you can achieve anything if you put your mind towards it,” he underscored.

This is no small feat for the first Jamaican-born BPO to establish a global footprint outside of the Caribbean.

The company delivers contact-centre management and business process outsourcing (BPO) services globally from its sites in countries across North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as through a robust network of US-based work-at-home agents (WAHA).

In Jamaica, Epstein said there are seven facilities with locations in Kingston and Montego Bay.

For any company operating presently, Epstein pointed to the importance of customer service.

“It’s everything. Your brand is your name. Your brand determines whether your product or service is good or not,” he shared.

Continuing, he said: “So, you got to invest your time, invest your capital into your team, in particular.

“In the businesses we support, success is driven by our team members. So, it is important to focus our time on investing in them, developing them, training them, promoting them up the value chain in the organisation, because we firmly believe that if we have good employee experiences, you’re gonna have great customer experiences,” explained the itelBPO founder.

Frost & Sullivan, in its assessment of nearshore (Americas) customer experience (CX) outsourcing services market, credits itelBPO for providing “excellent work conditions to support employee well-being and deliver a superior CX.”

“The company offers attractive employee packages, such as competitive salaries and benefits, flexible schedules, a clean and safe working environment, and significantly enhanced training processes to improve CX,” the firm declared.

For his part, industry analyst, Sebastian Menutti, heaped praises on itel for not neglecting customers while expanding.

“itel continuously expands into new geographies to extend its reach while preserving the agility and C-level involvement of smaller firms, making it a formidable provider for US customers,” stated Menutti.

And Epstein says itelBPO will be continuing with its expansion and building out its capacity in the region.

“We have a ton of projects coming up. We are about to launch our new site in Kingston off Molynes Road… which is 80,000 square feet, which will provide another 1,500 jobs,” he said.

“We’re continuing to build out capacity in our other sites in St Lucia, Honduras, Guyana, because we are continuing to grow,” Epstein continued.

“We have a lot of countries in the Caribbean and Latin American region that we have our eyes [in terms of setting up new sites],” outlined the CEO of the award-winning Jamaican BPO company.