What matters most to UK Christmas shoppers in 2021?
Christmas may be right around the corner, but 2021 is a different year for British retailers and customers alike.
Pandemic fears remain; the government has recently tightened restrictions, and Christmas shoppers have more buying options than ever before, with eCommerce evolving exponentially during COVID-19.
Here at Webhelp, we conducted a survey in partnership with YouGov to analyse consumer buying behaviours and preferences leading into the holiday season, in order to understand the issues that are most concerning to consumers and retailers this Christmas.
We surveyed over 2,000 UK adults to explore the importance of brand loyalty, considerations between offline and online shopping, and the value of personalisation, and uncovered a few key trends that should matter to retailers – in particular, leaders who are focused on customer experience, operations, and organisational transformation.
Here are some of the key insights gathered from the results:
- The pandemic could be impacting loyalty and causing customers to look beyond their usual brands – almost one third of those surveyed have started visiting different shops or websites that they weren’t using prior to the pandemic (32%), with value for money the most popular reason.
- Online retains dominance with almost 48% of shoppers planning to shop mostly or entirely online.
- There’s still hope for the high street however, with 46% of shoppers strongly agreeing that it’s an important part of British life, and over one third planning to shop in store.
- There’s an opportunity for retailers to improve personalisation with all age groups – half of those aged 18-24 feel retailers do this well, but this drops consistently across each group to just 22% for those aged over 55.
Money matters – value drives decisions
We first looked at what influences people when they decide where to do their Christmas shopping.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, financial considerations are the primary motivation for most people – almost one third (31%) felt they had less disposable income than last year. Value for money is the main deciding factor (60%), followed by low prices and promotions (40%) and cheap shipping and delivery costs (35%).
Fast delivery times are equally as important as positive customer reviews, with 33% of respondents stating that this feedback influences their buying decisions.
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, financial considerations are the primary motivation for most people.“
Customers want to get behind local businesses, with 35% planning to support local businesses this year. Moreover, 57% plan to start shopping at the same time they did during previous years, with 22% planning to hit the stores earlier — a significant enough number of customers to warrant enhancements to existing customer journeys, both online and offline.
Brand loyalty is under pressure
One interesting trend is that the pandemic could be causing customers to look beyond their usual brands.
Almost one-third of surveyed consumers (32%) have started visiting different shops or websites that they weren’t using prior to the pandemic, primarily driven by the same financial considerations as their more loyal counterparts.
“Almost one-third of surveyed consumers (32%) have started visiting different shops or websites that they weren’t using prior to the pandemic”
For this 32%, value for money was the most popular reason for jumping ship (39%), followed by prices and promotions (34%) and cheap delivery costs (27%). Over a quarter (27%) also counted fast delivery times and the opportunity to support local businesses as their reasons for switching brands, while 24% were influenced by positive customer reviews, emphasising the importance of getting the end-to-end customer journey right.
Online shopping continues to dominate…
With Amazon only one click away and continually pushing the boundaries of customer convenience, the importance of getting online retail experiences right is more vital than ever. Almost half of the shoppers surveyed (48%) plan to shop mostly (40%) or entirely (8%) online.
“Almost half of the shoppers surveyed (48%) plan to shop mostly (40%) or entirely (8%) online.“
Moreover, 14% of respondents expect to have more disposable income to spend this Christmas than last year, while 47% expect to have the same budget.
With many shoppers choosing to purchase online, some with more cash to spend, retailers have an opportunity to increase revenue by enhancing their personalisation efforts and improving customer experiences in online purchase journeys.
Retailers appear to be relatively successful at personalising interactions with younger customers, with 51% of 18-24 year olds agreeing that the deals and promotions they receive often feel tailored to their needs. Comparatively, this percentage drops continually across the various age brackets in the survey, with only 22% of over 55s feeling this way. It’s clear therefore, that as retailers look at their immediate and overall 2022 priorities, there is huge opportunity to improve personalisation across all age groups.
…but there’s hope for the high street
Here’s some good news for bricks-and-mortar retailers – there could be a revival of high street shopping, albeit against the ongoing backdrop of the pandemic.
We asked customers to respond to the statement that local high streets are an important part of British life, of which 46% strongly agreed, and 37% somewhat agreed. Age did factor into these results, with the over-45s more bullish about high street shopping than respondents between 18 and 34.
“46% strongly agreed that local high streets are an important part of British life”
With such a large majority valuing high street shopping and its impact on British culture, coupled with a strong desire to shop in-store, physical stores could witness increased sales this Christmas. Still, although consumers may hold high street shopping close to their hearts, the convenience of online shopping will always be a massive deciding factor, especially while the pandemic continues. In response, retailers would do well to enhance their offline, in-store experiences and integrate them into online customer journeys this year.
Vanessa Flather, Managing Director, Retail, Travel & E-commerce at Webhelp, had this to say of the results:
“The pandemic had a massive impact on the high street, and we expect to see that market trend continue across the Christmas period and into 2022. With this comes an increase in competition between brands online, and a customer base that is increasingly coming to expect high levels of service and convenience.
Innovative retailers will refuse to rely on loyalty alone to drive online sales, and instead focus on creating exceptional customer journeys. Personalisation should be a huge part of this focus – we’re increasingly seeing that customers expect at least some degree of personalisation when they shop, and retailers keen to place themselves ahead of the crowd will look to seize this opportunity.”
At Webhelp, we have a number of solutions to support retailers across the busy festive period and beyond, whether it be personalisation, peak demand management, customer journey optimisation, or analytics–driven customer insights.
If it sounds like we could provide a solution for you, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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Four Awards for Webhelp at the ECCCSAs
Webhelp Scored Top Prizes at the European Contact Centre & Customer Service Awards, Including Gold for Best Large Outsourcing Partnership
Leading global customer experience and business solutions provider, Webhelp, scored four awards at this year’s European Contact Centre & Customer Service Awards (ECCCSA), including Gold for Best Large Outsourcing Partnership for its long-standing partnership with a major global client. The business was also awarded Silver for Best Customer Support Team, recognizing the exceptional customer experience managed across the organization’s operational teams.
The awards, presented live on November 23rd in London, saw the Webhelp team succeed in the following categories:
- Gold for Best Large Outsourcing Partnership
- Silver for Best Customer Support Team
- Bronze for Most Effective Learning and Development Initiative
- Bronze for Best Innovation in Customer Service
Building on a series of award wins in recent years, the team’s gold recognized the business’ commitment to putting clients at the heart to create game-changing customer journeys.
Jean-Baptiste Decaix, Webhelp’s Group Chief Client Officer, commented:
“It’s our priority to work with clients with shared values, culture and passion because we believe in building long-standing relationships and partnerships. We are proud and incredibly excited to receive this recognition together with our global partner from one of the leading industry awards programs.”
The Bronze award for Best Innovation in Customer Service was won for Webhelp’s collaboration with, using the company’s proprietary technology, HELP-ER, to provide support throughout the entire roadside assistance journey.
Olivier Duha, Webhelp CEO and Co-Founder, said:
“I’m thrilled to see the business receive these awards, not only recognizing the hard work and dedication from our passionate game changers but validating our commitment to delivering best-in-class customer journeys. Congratulations go to the teams who worked so hard on achieving this great success.”
The Most Effective Learning and Development Initiative award validates Webhelp’s continued focus on empowering advisors with the best learning experiences possible. This year, for a gamification-led learning experience, adapted for a virtual world to provide advisors with new, engaging ways of learning whether in the office, at home, or working in a hybrid way, part of Webhelp’s unique Webhelp Anywhere proposition.
The European Contact Centre & Customer Service Awards are recognized as the longest-running and largest awards program in the customer experience industry, which celebrates organizations across Europe that deliver exceptional service to customers.
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Virtual Infrastructure: The super-car powering technology control automation
Kelvin Middleton, Webhelp’s Chief Technology Officer, outlines the benefits – and risks of virtualisation in business growth.
There is no denying the importance that businesses put on technology in-fulfilling their strategic objectives. For many industries and businesses, technology advancements have been accelerated by COVID-19 in line with the fourth industrial revolution (industry 4.0). This is coupled with cyber and resilience risk, which continues to be an increasing focus for businesses, governments, regulators and consumers.
Virtualisation is a key component for all businesses looking to advance their offering, and ensure that they have robust and modern technology to meet their user needs.
What is virtual infrastructure?
Traditionally, IT infrastructure has been made up of a collection of physical resources like servers, routers and firewalls. Virtualisation refers to the transition of these from physical resources to software, a virtual representation of its former self. So instead of a piece of hardware only performing one dedicated task you can now run lots of virtual instances on the same hardware all performing different tasks simultaneously.
Virtualisation is not a new technology – its history reaches back to the sixties – but as you look at this technology over the decades you see changes and improvements coupled with leaps in hardware manufacturing and software development. What once required significant upfront investment in decentralised and complex compute, network and storage infrastructures can now be achieved using inexpensive commodity hardware. This hardware centralises the infrastructure into modular blocks of compute, network and storage, which can be easily expanded over time. Welcome the hyper-converged revolution of the noughties.
Real world application and benefits vary, but one of the original considerations surrounded cost optimisation, allowing businesses to fully utilise the infrastructure capacity by making it perform more than one task at once. However, as incremental improvements in hardware and software were developed over time then virtualisation came to include enhanced redundancy, security, scalability, and reliability, each with their own pros and cons. As a result, business value realisation moved beyond optimising the IT budget and into the territory of providing competitor differentiation, and therefore increased revenues. As an example, consider the reduction in manufacturing times due to shorter R&D lifecycles, owing to the increased capability that virtualisation can provide.
In more recent years, virtualisation has expanded to include that which once required dedicated and/or specialist hardware, such as a network router, firewall and even telephone system. Now, however, even these components can be deployed virtually, which can massively reduce a business’ latency in change activities without compromising on reliability.
Risk
Like any technology, virtualisation comes with risks as well as benefits. Omit upskilling and investing in your engineers to ensure they know how to support new technologies, and you risk poor implementation, downtime and compromised security.
One potential pitfall is borne from the usual budget challenges targeting technology teams to do more with less – one of the selling points to virtualisation. Push this to an extreme, however, and you risk stacking the deck too narrowly, with virtual workloads operating on too few physical points of redundancy, so the cost of failure is extreme. Businesses need to strike the right balance of cost optimisation vs. redundancy.
Another concern businesses should evaluate and plan for is the security of an environment. With physical servers your attack surface could be dispersed, difficult to find, and therefore difficult to access. In the virtual world, the command-and-control plane can see, touch and destroy it all. Role-based access controls, multifactor authentication and data protection toolchains are the staples of today.
Cost management is another factor to consider in the world of virtualisation. People and process has traditionally always been the go-to for ensuring the controls are in place to manage growth, and therefore cost risk. But virtualisation has given businesses the opportunity to automate controls in the environment. Consider a new software development project which is able to simply, easily and programmatically create new virtual servers to provide the capacity needed to host a new project. Without the appropriate controls and governance in place, the self-serve benefits virtualisation enables can easily turn into a runaway train of infrastructure utilisation and unplanned expenditure.
The future
Old complex technology infrastructure is no longer adequate for modern businesses that need the agility and flexibility to execute change at pace. Virtual infrastructure is a key player in this space. Smart organisations will understand the need to strike a balance between investing for the future and delivering current priorities. Strategic changes to technology infrastructure must be addressed, providing businesses with the potential for scalability – making it easy to react quickly and safely deliver seamless solutions that really make an impact for their clients and customers.
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Black Friday, reliability and attractiveness the key components for your online strategy
Black Friday, known as an American consumer tradition and one of the busiest shopping holidays of the year.
This event is traditionally known for shoppers to line the streets, waiting for stores to open the day after Thanksgiving to pick-up what they hope will be the bargain of a lifetime. In recent years, Black Friday, closely followed by Cyber Monday, has now transpired and adopted across several other parts of the world.
In the mainstream media, Black Friday is typically represented by crowded scenes of over-excited and frustrated shoppers, fighting it out for that last item on the shelf and taking items from each other’s shopping cart. Over the last few years, many retail activities have shifted online. This shift to digital platforms has steadily grown, and due to 2020 events, this has skyrocketed. Many retailers online are even starting promotions early to gain traction to their platform and the opportunity to retain customer loyalty.
According to Adobe, in 2019 US Black Friday online sales beat all previous records, at an astonishing $7.4bn, up from $6.2bn in 2018. CNBC reported that Cyber Monday was an even bigger day for online shopping than Black Friday, with sales totaling $9.2bn, up 16.9% on 2018. From 2019 to 2020, sales increased by a further 22% to a record astonishing $9bn.
Integrated omnichannel experience
It’s not hard to imagine that the momentum will persist, and Black Friday will drive even more customers onto their phones, tablets, or laptops. Businesses now attempt to avoid crowded in-store events, to safeguard their customers in the COVID era and simply follow this trend we have observed over a number of years now. Doing so without losing retail sales must go through a strong Digital Content strategy to meet customer demands and ensure an integrated omnichannel experience.
Consumers have become intrinsically used to shopping from the warmth of their home, therefore a successful Black Friday via online channels is something all retailers are hoping for. To ensure a successful campaign, it is key businesses content strategy is aligned with those ambitions and consumers expectations.
Managing content to attract and convert customers
Attracting consumers with the right content against the competition and ads that are displayed to them, requires a streamlined catalog management process. This ensures online users land on a well-managed platform, with a catalog that shows the right promotions and the right products for them. That being said, following your marketplace’s guidelines and ensuring a smooth and homogeneous experience are key challenges for conversion and retention.
At Webhelp, we are fully prepared for this event. We have a highly successful track record of managing peak demand in terms of partner onboarding for the international retail and logistics brands we support.
Case study: leading online e-commerce and marketplace platform in Turkey
Behind the scenes, this success hinges on an incredible amount of preparation and hard work from our team of experts, and of course close collaboration with our clients, supported by our strong processes and sourcing capabilities in finding the right, specialized resources.
Technology and expertise combined
Every year leading up to the peak period, we create an exciting atmosphere to support and motivate our talented experts. We focus on motivation and ensure we reward people for their hard work. Along with the energy and commitment of our teams, technology and adaptability also plays a huge part to ensure we offer a smooth and seamless experience for our partners and their customers.
The skills and expertise that our teams have shown by quickly reacting in order to prepare for key events in a retailer’s calendar year, is reflected in the highly positive feedback that we receive from our client partners. This year is no exception as Black Friday and Cyber Monday will create added pressures for the retail and logistics sectors where our teams continually provide a game-changing experience. Our talent, global footprint and stable infrastructures are capable of efficiently creating success for our clients by providing their customers with an exceptional online shopping experience.
Learn more about our Digital Content Services for Content Moderation.
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Webhelp Welcomes Tech Leader Benjamin Faes to Executive Committee
Webhelp, a leading global provider of customer experience (CX) and business solutions, announced that Benjamin Faes has joined the group from his leadership role at Google.
As Group Managing Director, Benjamin reinforces the company’s executive leadership team at a time of significant growth, including an expanding technology client portfolio.
Benjamin’s career at Google spanned 14 years, most recently as Managing Director at Google Cloud for Southern Europe and Emerging Markets, where he worked to transition the business’s enterprise clients to the cloud. Prior to this, he led the launch of YouTube’s services across Europe.
“As a strong leader with an agile growth mindset, Benjamin will reinforce the business and executive team with his fresh perspective. His expertise and knowledge will serve him well as he leads our global marketing and business development practice,” said Olivier Duha, CEO and Co-founder at Webhelp. “I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that I am thrilled to welcome Benjamin to our team and am confident in his ability to further develop our strategy to create unforgettable human experiences.”
Benjamin brings 25 years of experience in sales and marketing strategy, leadership, and mergers and acquisitions, through his work with globally leading technology and media companies.
At Webhelp, he will work closely with the executive leadership team and Matthieu Bouin, Group Managing Director, leveraging his expertise in fast-growth organizations to support the business as it continues to scale globally.
“Today, the success of brands is based on how they design journeys that take their customers’ needs into account every step of the way,” said Faes. “I look forward to working with the team to help design, deliver and optimize truly incredible customer experiences. I’m impressed by the unique entrepreneurial spirit and culture that is brought to life across all areas of the business and am excited to join on this journey.”
Anywhere, Anytime, Any device
In the post-pandemic world, customers expect to interact with brands on their terms – via their preferred channel, and at the time and place they want.
With demand for digital channels spiking, brands must now integrate all forms of communication which are relevant for their specific customers – such as chat bots, SMS, web, mobile apps, phone, email, video, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Here, we discuss three trends in demand for new channels to optimize CX while retaining operational control – a topic explored more fully in the CX21 series.
Provide a seamless user experience
Many customers want to proactively investigate, and self-serve, solutions to problems – often using multiple channels simultaneously for a speedier resolution.
What people will not tolerate is brands wasting their time by failing to manage the complexity of the multichannel environment. In reality, that means being asked to provide the same information multiple times or being sent down ‘dead end’ or circular channels, where it’s impossible to complete transactions. It’s vital that customers can complete journeys in any, and all, channels provided by the brand – be it an app, website, social channels or bot.
Advanced firms recognize that multichannel is a strategic priority. They’re investing in cloud contact centres which enable them to integrate all their business operations – from sales, customer service, CRM, and marketing, which helps customers to switch easily between channels. It also ensures technologies work together, and provides a ‘single view of the customer’ across online and offline experiences.
Design with the customer in mind
Brands must resist the temptation to implement ‘cool’ new channels for the sake of it – effectively putting tactics before strategy.
The journey to multi-channel should always begin with a “human sense of design thinking” – gaining a genuine understanding of what people your customers are trying to achieve, and the journeys they’re taking to get there.
For consumers, the priorities are most likely to be convenience and simplicity. When introducing new channels, it’s often easier and more practical for brands to introduce bolt-ons for existing customer technology, rather than introduce clunky proprietary apps – many of which to date have collected data but added little value to customers.
With demand for digital channels soaring, it may also be time to ‘bust the myth’ that people, by default, want to get into phone conversations with advisors. In reality, these calls are often the “human last resort” for people happy to self-serve, thus brands should recruit and assign highly skilled advisors to handle these complex queries.
In short, customers love digital channels – but their primary concern remains the ability to easily complete transactions – whatever the channel.
Role of data
Providing an opportunity for great CX anytime, anywhere and on any device marks a clear win for consumers. But it also enables intelligent brands to secure a competitive advantage – through gathering, centralizing, and mining data from the entire customer journey.
Brands will need to use AI and analytics to create the customer profiles which underpin future products and services. These data-led approaches help to exceed customer expectations, cement customer loyalty, and refine multi-channel strategies.
And that’s a wise move, because delivering a robust multi-channel environment is not a one-off exercise; brands will need to make a long term, operational commitment, and a team of people to continuously assess and improve performance.
The shift to multi-channel will put clear water between CX brands. Those which streamline channels, apply human design thinking, and harness insights from powerful data, will maintain ‘sticky’ customer relationships – delivering experiences well beyond purely transactional and reactive services. Brands which don’t engage with multichannel risk reputational damage from wasting their customers’ time on poorly-designed journeys which prioritize channels over user experience.
Discover our CX21 series that explores the major trends, opportunities, and challenges in the world of CX in the 21st century, focusing on how brands can thrive in this dynamic context.
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Webhelp Partner at CCA Leaders' Summit
We are delighted to announce our involvement as a partner in the 2021 Customer Contact Association (CCA) Leaders’ Summit, taking place in Glasgow on 1st December.
The event will welcome over 200 senior customer service and experience executives from some of the leading brands in the UK & Ireland, providing a platform to collaborate and connect with business leaders and discuss the latest customer experience innovations shaping the customer contact industry.
Webhelp will be represented by Mark Guest, Managing Director, Customer Solutions and Dave Pattman, Managing Director, Customer Experience, with both looking forward to sharing their knowledge in the customer experience space; including the re-imagining of the customer service model, the balance of technology and human support within customer experience design, and much more.
Commenting on the event Mark said:
“I’m looking forward to attending the CCA Leaders’ Summit to engage and network with like-minded businesses, particularly on the challenges and opportunities they face in their industry, and how this will shape their customer experience strategy for 2022.”
Dave continues:
“The summit promises to be a thought-provoking discussion on the future of CX. It will be great to hear first-hand how leaders in their respective fields are exploring the current state of service delivery and customer experience and to lend our expertise to the debate.”
As we countdown the final weeks of 2021, the CCA Leaders’ Summit should prove to be a timely opportunity to discuss and debate the trends and behaviours that will shape the next year ahead in CX – and to celebrate those organisations who are already delivering customer service excellence.
B2B - Buy Now Pay Later, a new payment standard: 4 ways to stand out
Now is the time! The opportunities offered by Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) appear to be massive for B2B. When offering their payment methods, platforms and marketplaces should choose to stand out from the rest, as recommended by Meriem Ouenniche, Client Solution Manager at Webhelp Payment Services.
This is no longer simply an option, it’s a standard: Buy Now Pay Later is experiencing exponential growth in the area of B2B. It is noted that this credit purchase option has been offered in e-commerce and B2C marketplaces for years by fintechs such as Younited Credit or Klarna, who are now transposing their solutions to B2B. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows marketplace operators, sellers and buyers to access deferred payment solutions.
But is this not “merely” a new credit option? Here are the arguments suggesting that this phenomenon deserves to be looked at more closely:
– It is true that credit is nothing new in B2B commerce, but we are conscious of a new desire on the part of Buyers and Sellers for a solution that is perfectly integrated with the shopping experience. This “way of thinking” comes as no surprise: millennials represent a significant part of the workforce in companies, and 73% of them are involved in B2B purchasing decisions*. As keen supporters of B2C purchases on ultra-optimised platforms (eBay, Amazon, Cdiscount, etc.), they aren’t ready to give up this quality of experience in the workplace.
– From the perspective of Sellers and the business platform, BNPL is seen as an opportunity to increase the value of the average basket, to enhance customer involvement and loyalty, to reduce financial risks and to focus on the business and growth rather than on payments.
– From the Buyers’ perspective, VSEs and SMEs are a very receptive target for the benefits offered by BNPL, as long as the operations and formalities are straightforward and fast. These companies are looking for more flexible and less restrictive alternatives to the credit solutions offered by conventional banks.
4 ways to stand out with BNPL
In a context of rapid change it would seem appropriate to offer Buy Now Pay Later in the following 4 areas of differentiation:
1) You need to offer a highly personalized shopping and payment experience
The buyers must feel understood, listened to, and that their preferred payment methods are taken into account. Analytics and AI seem to be particularly relevant in this new purchasing ecosystem, thanks to their ability to personalise the customer experience.
2) Your payment solution should make it possible for the seller to be paid more quickly (instant pay out) and for the buyer to pay on the payment date that suits them (which may differ from the one proposed by the seller)
Scoring plays an essential role in the analysis and evaluation of the buyer’s profile in order to define the appropriate credit line and thus limit the risk of non-payment.
3) Your payment solution needs to be fully integrated, fluid and seamless
In contrast, a complex payment experience will, in the long run, prove to be a deal breaker. This shows the importance of continuous, dynamic improvement of the user experience (UX).
4) Your payment solution needs to be comprehensive and flexible
To meet new market demands, it is recommended to offer BNPL solutions in order to support B2B marketplaces in their growth and diversification of their offer.
As a PSP (payment service provider), Webhelp Payment Services covers the entire spectrum of B2B payment services through a scalable offer adapted to the client’s needs: scoring, onboarding of buyers & sellers, pay in / out, white label invoicing, dunning, debt collection, credit insurance, BNPL, etc.
*According to a report published by Merit.
To find out more about this topic
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Webhelp appoints Tammy Chetty as South Africa's new Managing Director, Operations
We’re pleased to announce the appointment of Tammy Chetty as the new Managing Director of our South Africa operations.
Tammy joins the business from Harambee, whom Webhelp have a longstanding partnership with to bring career opportunities to young people in South Africa. Since 2014, Tammy has been Chief Operating Officer for the Harambee Academy, and the National Client Services and Western Cape Executive of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator.
Drawing on the wealth of experience Tammy brings with her from Harambee, this is a huge opportunity for Webhelp to further increase diversity and inclusion across all areas of the business as they continue to build a sustainable business in South Africa and deliver on their ambition to employ candidates from disadvantaged communities through impact sourcing models.
Bringing over two decades of private sector business management and sales experience with her as well, Tammy has held senior roles in the Business Banking division working for Barclays (Absa) where she led a team of over 2000 people.
Commenting on her new role, Tammy Chetty said:
“I am excited to be joining the team at Webhelp as I’ve had first-hand positive experiences of the values and culture that so resonates with me. Their People first and Client at the centre approach has made a significant impact to the growth of the Webhelp business and sector in South Africa. Making a difference in communities through impact sourcing has stood out for me as a beacon of hope and sustainable practice in growing the business further. I am eager to get stuck in and be a part of the next phase of the journey and continue to build on their exceptional global reputation in the BPO sector.”
As the first female MD for South Africa, Tammy joins Cathy Kalamaras, Melissa Naidoo Claassen and David Turner, Webhelps Chief Executive Officer for South Africa, UK and India in the country leadership team, with David commenting:
“Much has changed since we started our South Africa operations in 2014 so as we look at all areas of our business, this is a hugely exciting appointment for us. The Webhelp story in South Africa is one of tremendous growth, with nearly 5500 people now working across locations at Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and our newly launched site in Durban. Our first female MD for South Africa, I’m really excited to be continuing our long-term relationship with Tammy as we officially welcome her to the team and to work with her to develop exciting new opportunities to grow our team of passionate game-changers in South Africa.”
Webhelp appoints Emma Bouché to lead Healthcare expansion in the UK
We’re pleased to announce the appointment of Emma Bouché as Head of Healthcare for Webhelp in the UK.
Emma joins the business with extensive international experience in creating and scaling business segments for a large corporate and private equity-backed start-up. She has spent 15 years with General Electric (GE) where she had several leadership roles focused on Healthcare across marketing, finance and commercial. Most recently she led GE’s current business transformation, from selling products to value based integrated solutions.
“I’m incredibly excited to combine my experience scaling value-based solutions and my passion about healthcare with Webhelp’s expertise to expand its presence in Healthcare to the UK” said Emma. “I look forward to working with the team to help design and deliver journeys to shape patient-centered experiences. I’ve been so impressed by the unique entrepreneurial spirit and culture that I see across all areas of the business which I’m delighted to now be a part of.”
A commercially astute leader with extensive international experience in creating and growing business segments, Emma has worked in Europe and the United States of America, honing her industry expertise in Healthcare, Energy and more recently in Vertical Farming.
Commenting on the appointment, Webhelp’s Chief Customer Solutions Officer Helen Murray said:
“Emma is a fantastic addition to our business and senior leadership team, bringing a growth mind-set along with her exceptional knowledge and expertise in the Healthcare sector. I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say we’re thrilled to welcome Emma to our team as she develops our strategy to grow our presence in the sector in the UK.”
Emma will extend the reach of Webhelp to the healthcare sector in the UK by developing partnerships with Pharmaceutical and Med-Tech companies as well as Start-up and Public Health Agencies to develop Go-To Market solutions, and Patient support programs.
As a key strategic market for the business, we’re able to combine our outstanding Customer Experience track record with Healthcare Expertise, to offer the industry innovative solutions to promote products, demonstrate outcomes and create better patient and Healthcare provider user experiences.