With a compelling blend of cost competitiveness, robust English skills, and significantly lower market saturation, Peru is swiftly becoming the strategic nearshore choice for businesses aiming to optimize their outsourcing approach. If Mexico or Colombia have been your default selections, it might be time to give Lima another look.
Why Peru Call Centers—and Why Now?
For most of the past decade, Latin America’s outsourcing map has been dominated by Mexico, Colombia, and Jamaica. Yet rumblings about Lima have grown louder since a smattering of pre-pandemic BPOs began setting up shop in the city’s San Isidro district, wagering that the local workforce could handle bilingual volumes at scale, much the same as proven BPOs were seeing in their Mexico call centers.
OC (Interviewer): “Corey, what sparked the decision to scout Peru in this latest visit?”
Corey Kotlarz (Founder + President): “We’ve been hearing Peru described as “the next strong Latin-American market” for awhile. And our clients really rely on us to be well versed in all markets, as they trust our advisory services to fuel their CX initiatives. BPOs had moved in and become established, and we wanted a 2025 site visit to garner the latest firsthand data on English levels, growth capacity, and safety. We wanted to see the culture and talent for ourselves.”
Peru’s macro case is straightforward:
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English skills, rising fast – The country ranks 53rd globally and 10th in Latin America on the 2024 EF English Proficiency Index, solidly in the “moderate” band and ahead of regional peers such as Brazil and Mexico.
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Demographics that favor scale – Nearly 60 percent of Peruvians are under 35, and 52 percent have completed secondary education.
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Still-emerging wage structures – Average fully loaded agent costs hover several dollars below those in saturated nearshore hubs, a gap that matters in an age when CFOs are asked to fund AI pilots without ballooning operating budgets.
OC: If a brand has never outsourced nearshore, does Peru make sense as a starting point?
Jade Giesen (VP, BPO + Client Success): “Absolutely. Peru isn’t new to outsourcing—they’ve supported in-country Spanish programs for years—so there’s institutional know-how. Their affinity for U.S. culture means you’re not testing on your customers.”
Corey: “It depends on goals. If cost efficiency is paramount, Peru ranks high: Spanish below $10 an hour, bilingual around $13–14. English is solid B2; if “flawless U.S. English” outranks price, Peru might not be the first location you prioritize. But that proficiency gap is shrinking rapidly.”
For Seasoned Outsourcers: Diversification without Dilution
CFOs who already run nearshore operations may ask why they need another pin on the map. The answer lies in saturation risk. Attrition in Mexico’s primary CX hubs flirted with 45 percent during the 2023 wage inflation spike; Lima’s biggest providers reported turnover in the low 20s.
OC: What about companies already in Mexico or Colombia—why add Peru?
Jade: “Two words: cost savings. Clients typically see 15 percent or more savings while staying in the near-shore time zone. Market saturation is also lower, which helps with staffing.”
Corey: “Think $3–4 per-hour reductions versus Mexico, in some cases, plus abundant talent and lower attrition thanks to easy commutes and strong work ethic.”
Think of it this way: Shift 300 bilingual seats from Guadalajara to, say, Lima at a ~$3 differential, and you free roughly $1.7 million annually. More than enough to fund a next-gen knowledge-management platform or a small LLM proof of concept.
English Proficiency—Myth vs. Reality
Skeptics usually fixate on language. Does “moderate proficiency” mean agents will struggle with U.S. sarcasm or regulatory jargon? Giesen encountered the critique in client briefings and confronted it during live focus groups in Lima. “We kept hearing that English would be a disadvantage,” she recalls. “Yet leadership and front-line talent came in at strong B2 levels, and we saw rapid climb to C1 once they were on an account for 90 days.”
OC: The common knock is “English isn’t strong enough.” Fair?
Jade: “It’s a myth. Agents enter at a strong B2 and, with account exposure, climb toward C1 quickly.”
Corey: “Exactly—the benchmark is B2 on day one; repetition moves them up. The idea that English is “sub-par” just isn’t what we observed.”
More telling is the sector mix already thriving in Peru—travel, hospitality, fintech. These verticals demand cross-system tolerance and soft skills rarely associated with low-cost seats.
Peru Call Center: Infrastructure and Economics
Giesen, whose job is to vet every detail from power redundancy to neighborhood walkability, was looking for client roadblocks. Instead, she found bus lines that stopped steps from agent floors, data centers with ISO-tier redundancy, and public-transport options cleaner than in cities twice Lima’s GDP per capita. “Transportation and the infrastructure for the agents were better than I expected.”
Safety, too, shined. Kotlarz has seen rifle-toting military patrols in other Latin markets; in Lima he saw joggers and families. That matters when U.S. brands dispatch training waves for a launch. “If I were sending employees for a multi-week ramp, I’d want to know they can walk to a restaurant after shift change,” Giesen noted.
Beyond the ease and calm of the cultural infrastructure, no decision gets made without the buy-in from a finance chair…but what complicates the question is that labor arbitrage alone seldom seals an outsourcing case. CX leaders now ask for resiliency, multi-geo diversification, and customer-satisfaction upside. Peru offers each—but at costs that let companies self-fund automation.
Kotlarz’s internal benchmarks show Spanish-only voice starting “below $10 an hour,” while bilingual (English-Spanish) sits in the $13–14 range, roughly 20–30 percent under prevailing Mexico rates.
Such deltas unlock what Outsource Consultants calls the CX Dream Path™: redirect savings into AI and analytics without a fresh budget line. The arithmetic resonates even with CFOs skeptical of “AI transformation” slide decks, as Peru serves as a practical lever. Brands can bank immediate OpEx relief via outsourcing, than redeploy those savings into speech analytics of agent-assist bots.
OC: Connect the dots between Peru and your advisory model.
Corey: “Our job is to match brands with the right geo and BPO. Peru checks a lot of boxes: near-shore time zone, competitive wages, solid English, and high-touch mid-market providers—perfect for clients seeking savings they can reinvest in AI and analytics.”
Culture Counts for Peru Call Centers
Tourist-board slogans rarely make it onto balance sheets, but culture fit can shave minutes off average handle time. Peru’s Spanish is neutral, laced with the vowels U.S. callers recognize from northern Mexico telenovelas. Time zones overlap U.S. business hours, and Lima-to-Miami flights clock in under six hours—shorter than New York to San Francisco.
Still, Kotlarz argues it’s the values alignment—family orientation, what Peruvians call calidez (warmth)—that tilts CSAT. In focus groups, agents repeated one word: familia.
OC: Does cultural alignment really move KPIs?
Corey: “Agents stream U.S. content, many have visited the States, and they prize work ethic. That shared context trims call times and boosts satisfaction.”
Choosing Peru isn’t merely about near-term cost efficiencies; it’s a pivotal strategy for building resilience and innovation into your CX operations.
The savings captured from this market shift can directly fund AI and advanced analytics initiatives—positioning your company at the forefront of customer experience without inflating budgets.
Interested in exploring Peru as a strategic cornerstone of your CX vision? Schedule your CX Strategy Call today.
