Building a Dominant Multilingual Contact Center & Platform – with Jackie Xu of Callnovo

In this episode of the Outsource Accelerator Podcast, Derek is joined by Jackie Xu, CEO and Founder of Callnovo. 

Callnovo is celebrating its 20th year in business as one of the most prominent multilingual contact centers worldwide. 

The two discuss Callnovo’s history, its different operations, and how the firm welcomes the new AI revolution. 

Callnovo

Jackie first introduces his company, Callnovo. 

“Callnovo is a technology-enabled multilingual customer service provider. We provide outsourced customer service solutions to many global companies. 

Our main focus is companies that are going global when clients are in need of a multilingual solution.” 

The business was born in 2004, after Jackie had lived in Canada for a few years. 

“The inspiration came in those years. Voice over IP was just invented and introduced to the market [and] in Toronto, Canada, it’s a multilingual and multiethnic city with a dynamic business market.

So all these elements inspired me to start the business to get into a global market.” 

His observations also led him to realize that they could provide offshore services. 

“I realized that some companies were doing telemarketing to do sales, and I was thinking that maybe we can offshore the telemarketing operations from Canada to make it more feasible and long-lasting for the cost in business.” 

Leading in multilingual call center operations

Callnovo’s early years were founded on Chinese-language customer service. 

“We focused on the Chinese language a lot. We provided Chinese, Mandarin, and Cantonese customer service and telemarketing from China to clients in North America. 

We did a lot of successful campaigns on outbound telemarketing as well as inbound customer service.” Jackie recalls.

Eventually, Callnovo landed a Fortune 500 client that required multiple languages. This pushed the company to expand. 

“We realized it was the trend. So we put lots of effort to build the multinational team around the world in different countries. 

And we successfully expanded our languages from three, four languages to more than 20 languages. It was a challenge, but I realized it was a great opportunity for us to transform ourselves into a real multilingual company.” 

Jackie is proud of Callnovo’s structure and general business model, which has allowed them to target growing companies. 

He explains how Callnovo built on the main elements needed to succeed. 

“I think for a contact center the main element is manpower. So we started to focus on this point and we did studies on different countries.

Our main strategy was to acquire a local contact center or build a joint venture company structure to get started. And then from our end, the next step is to build the technology solution.” 

This turned Callnovo into a one-stop shop, providing not just customer service but also the necessary technological infrastructure for their clients to go global. 

The work paid off, and the results are quite tangible, as Jackie attests.

“Now we have more than 35 operation centers around the world, and we provide more than 65 languages, and we have around 2000 to 2500 agents, most of them office-based with 10-20 percent home-based.” 

Approach to AI integration

Like many of its ilk in the outsourcing industry, Callnovo relies heavily on technology. When a new development like AI surfaces, Jackie is quick to get on it. 

Callnovo has already integrated AI into its CRM, HeroDash. 

“We put lots of special features that are very useful for multilingual global team management. So I can say that our platform is very useful and powerful for BPO companies.” 

He anticipates further integration as the technology improves. 

“The AI is coming in from all aspects. So we’re thinking, the efforts that we are going to put into the HeroDash platform, it’s going to be more AI.” 

He plans on being completely transparent with his clients on the use of AI, affirming that there’s a portion who would prefer interacting with humans. 

“We want our customers to be aware that you are talking to a real human being or an AI bot. Some clients may have their own preference.” 

You can learn more by visiting the Callnovo website or by emailing them at [email protected].