Outsourcing to Croatia

Even though Croatia is probably not the first country to come to mind when you’re thinking of outsourcing, it is increasingly becoming a popular outsourcing destination.

An increasing number of businesses are choosing their outsourcing destinations within Central Europe for a wide range of reasons. Croatia is one of the countries that is gaining momentum in outsourcing services. When outsourcing to Croatia, you can expect that the people behind the service are highly skilled, fluent in several foreign languages, and are very pro-technology. Among other things, this kind of service comes at an excellent value for money.

To learn more about the outsourcing environment in Croatia, two Croatian outsourcing companies have teamed up to answer some common questions regarding Croatia and its role as an outsourcing hub and provider.

Cohres: Investment research company serving clients internationally since 2014 from Croatia with a team that has multinational experience in several industries. Cohres is focused on providing and developing comprehensive research for investors, funds, Venture Capital firms, and entrepreneurs to make investment and strategic decisions.

Q Experience: Business process outsourcing company founded in Croatia in 2017. Q Experience specializes in premium customer service. The company has grown to 300 specialists in 3 years with international clients such as Uber, Flixbus, and Zalando.

From your experience how has outsourcing evolved in the CEE region?

Cohres: Outsourcing has evolved in Central and Eastern Europe with time since more Western companies are trying to find methods to reduce and/or maintain costs while also maintaining high quality. Ten years ago, you could see that companies were willing to outsource however with a strong sense of hesitation. Meanwhile, the current outsourcing environment in CEE is thriving due to the large multinational professional support in relation to strong expertise. This is evident with many hubs for foreign direct investment and business such as Warsaw, Bratislava, and even lately Kiev. Western companies are no longer focusing on outsourcing basic non-core tasks, but rather searching for partners that will grow with them and partners that they can count on.

From our experience, a strong factor when choosing to outsource to our region is the ideal difference in time zones. When dealing with clients based in North America, Cohres is able to provide key market updates, trends and investment opportunities to our clients’ time preference due to time-zone difference. Additionally, the CEE region has close cultural alignment with Western Europe, which allows us to have a clear advantage for various client requests.

From your perspective, how can Croatia capitalize on the upcoming outsourcing trends?

Cohres: The workplace as a whole has changed greatly over the past year. The imposed COVID-19 measures in every country have become synonymous with working from home or remote work. Companies are beginning to realize, if you can do your job from anywhere, anyone can do your job. This has made companies more comfortable with the fact that the employees will not all be located in one office. This type of work is a valuable introduction for outsourcing to specialist companies in Croatia that can focus on your exact business needs due to their specialized services.

Additionally, the language barriers in Croatia are minimal, according to the latest 2019 English Proficiency Index, Croatia is 14th in the world outside non-native countries for knowledge of the English language. Therefore, companies with expertise should not have a barrier when approaching potential partners. To add, the Croatian workforce is highly skilled and similar to many of the CEE countries, Croatia has a significant STEM focus within the education system. Croatia needs to recognize the multilingual talent, skills and also the culture of its workforce to further encourage the outsourcing sector to expand. Lastly, Croatian companies and entrepreneurs with technology today have the whole world as their market, so there is more opportunity than ever to expand the customer base.

What is important to know when outsourcing?

Cohres: When timing is right, outsourcing will enable your internal teams to focus on your core business and mission. Forming partnerships with people/companies that can perform the tasks better will also help your business gain a competitive advantage. Your business will be able to provide quality services to your customers and increase overall productivity.

Finding the right partner is crucial so that outsourcing can help you reduce costs and scale your business. Firstly, you should outline your expectations beforehand, so that you are able to choose the right proactive partner rather than a reactive partner. You need to identify a partner whose expertise and vision can match your company’s goals. Next, you must prepare your future plan and communicate your expectations clearly to the outsourcing partner of your choice. It is important to choose a partner that also offers flexibility, rather than just “following the defined listed tasks.” Think of the company you’re outsourcing as your department’s extension to your existing business rather than just a task provider or a general supplier for your business.

From our perspective, as a company offering outsourced service, accountability and responsibility is a crucial component when deciding to become a company that offers outsourced services. The world is a large marketplace and there are other companies/individuals who can offer the same service, so professionalism is crucial for companies seeking to offer services. Additionally, companies providing outsourced services should seek to differentiate themselves, whether that be through customized service or innovative approaches. We aim to provide a customized approach to our partners rather than sticking to a generalized “same for all” approach as each partner request has a different approach, no clients nor companies are exactly the same so adaptability is an essential skill to have in this market.

Photo: Q Experience

My product/service is very specific, and I am reluctant to outsource. How can I trust an outsourced company?

Q Experience: We approach such cases by setting up dedicated premium customer service teams together with our clients. From the beginning of the recruitment process, all the way to the live pilot — we discuss each step with the client to tailor the whole operation according to their needs.

Trust is gradually built together. Initially, we insist on having our client’s personnel over at our HQ for the first week or two to help us soak up the knowledge, culture, and core ideas of your business. In doing so, we are sure that our specialists fit your culture while also being adequately prepared in terms of required competencies. Additionally, we always like to start with lower complexity first, steadily building it up and thus preserving premium quality support.

How do you adapt to the unpredictable behaviour of your client’s end customers?

Q Experience: We are dedicated to our mission to provide premium customer service, and we do that by carefully monitoring customer satisfaction levels and KPIs, as well as having our specialists listen to the customers and providing constant feedback back to our clients. This enables our clients to improve their product/service for the end customers continuously.

Furthermore, we make sure there are mutual efforts to improve the know-how/knowledge base, to stay up to date with the industry trends and maintain the quality levels. For example, with our client FlixBus, we faced challenges due to their exponential growth fuelling the expansion to new markets. We learned the importance of constant training to provide our specialists with new skills, as well as to give them refreshers due to FlixBus’ growth and changes in their knowledge base. With tado°, we’ve gone above and beyond with implementing live chat on their website and preventing lead leakage. This led to an increase in sales and an overall increase in customer satisfaction. At the International Customer Experience Awards 2019, we won a bronze medal in a category of Customer Experience Team — Transformation / Solution.

How do you keep a good relationship with your clients? Which industries do your clients come from?

Q Experience: We believe that a good relationship is a key to successful outsourcing, which is why we make sure that our clients have a dedicated person of contact to ensure constant communication. At the beginning of the partnership, our C-level members play a crucial role in overlooking the entire set-up process. After we enter the trial period, the points of contact become dedicated team managers and team leaders who are available to our clients for any questions and additional info to continue overlooking day-to-day processes. This is what gives our clients peace of mind in each stage of developing a successful partnership.

Our clients are diverse — from Tourlane and FlixBus (tourism and travel, respectively), over Zalando and Home24 (e-commerce), all the way to tado° (IT/smart home devices), with others in between. Our specialists are trained explicitly for our clients to provide the best customer service, regardless of the industry.

Photo: Q Experience

All in all, if you are a company thinking about outsourcing, we encourage you to consider one of many Croatian companies to become your outsourcing partner — you won’t be making a mistake! If you still feel hesitant about introducing outsourcing to your company, give it a shot and see where it takes you. The talent pool in Croatia is strong, and Cohres and Q Experience are only two examples of companies that have recognized potential Croatia has as an outsourcing hub and are eager to prove that on a global scale.

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