Eco2u NW · Appointment Setter

Hiring in South Africa

Why South Africa, the five channels to run, how to set the Facebook campaign up, every advert ready to post, the screening funnel, and the legal and practical setup to sort before anyone starts.

1 · Why South Africa 2 · The five channels 3 · The Facebook campaign 4 · Advert copy 5 · Screening funnel 6 · The interview 7 · Legal & practical setup 8 · Week one

Why South Africa — and what it costs you

Worth being clear-eyed about both halves. It's a genuinely strong market for this specific role, and it has two real operational risks that other markets don't.

✅ What makes it work

The English is right. South African English is clear and neutral to a British ear in a way most offshore markets aren't. On a phone call to a homeowner in Preston, that is the entire ball game.

The time zone is nearly ours. SAST is 1 hour ahead of the UK in summer, 2 in winter. A full UK shift — including the 5–8pm evening block where the money is — is an ordinary working day for them. No night shifts, so no burnout and no churn.

Deep, experienced pool. South Africa has a mature outbound call-centre industry serving UK and US clients. You are not training people to phone strangers from scratch.

The maths works both ways. £1,000–£2,000 a month is a strong professional income locally and a fraction of a UK setter. Nobody is being underpaid for it to make sense.

⚠️ What you have to solve

Power cuts. Scheduled load-shedding can take a household's electricity out for hours at a time, with little notice. A setter with no backup power simply stops working mid-shift. This is the number-one cause of failed South African hires and it is completely preventable — screen for it, hard.

Connectivity. Fibre is widespread in the cities and patchy elsewhere. They need a real line and a mobile-data fallback.

Employment status. Contractor, not employee — but South Africa tests for “deemed employment” on how the relationship actually runs, not what the contract calls it. Needs a proper agreement.

Data protection. They'll handle UK customers' personal data from outside the UK. That's an international transfer and it needs covering off.

Screen for power and internet before you screen for sales ability. A brilliant setter who drops off three times a week is worth less than a decent one who is always there. Make it question one on the application form and a pass/fail on the interview.

The five channels, ranked

Run the top three at the same time. They cost almost nothing together and they surface completely different people.

Channel	Cost	Speed	Quality	Use it for
1. Facebook / Meta ads	£5–10/day	Hours	Mixed, high volume	Volume at the top of the funnel. Your main channel, and the one you control.
2. Facebook groups (SA remote-work & sales jobs)	Free	Hours	Mixed	Free volume alongside the ads. Post, don't spam — read each group's rules first.
3. Gumtree SA / OLX	Free–low	1–2 days	Mixed	Enormous reach for jobs in South Africa. Cheap and worth doing every time.
4. LinkedIn	Free post, paid ads	2–5 days	Highest	Experienced BDRs and call-centre agents who've worked UK campaigns. Fewer, better applicants.
5. Job boards — PNet, Careers24, Indeed SA, Job Mail	Some paid	3–7 days	Solid	Serious full-time candidates. Slower, but the CVs are real.

Worth considering later

Referrals — the best channel there is, and it only opens once you've got one good hire. Offer £150 on a successful referral who passes their trial.

Offshore staffing agencies — they'll hand you a shortlist in days. Costs a placement fee or an ongoing markup. Use if hiring twice fails, not first.

The recommended opening move

Facebook ads at £7/day for 5 days, plus free posts into 5–10 South African remote-work groups, plus a Gumtree listing. Total spend about £35.

That should produce 40–100 applications. You need one good hire out of it.

The Facebook campaign — how to actually set it up

Setting	Use
Objective	Leads with an instant form, or Traffic to a form. Instant forms convert far better on mobile.
Location	South Africa. Start with Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth — best fibre and the deepest call-centre pool.
Age	22–45
Detailed targeting	Interests around call centres, telesales, customer service, BPO, remote work — if the platform lets you. See the warning below.
Budget	£5–10/day, 5–7 days. Do not spend more until you've seen the first 30 applications.
Placements	Advantage+ / automatic. Feed and Reels do the work.
Creative	A talking-head video beats a graphic every time. 30–45 seconds of Tom or Ryan saying what the job is and what it pays. It filters for people who'll watch and listen — the exact trait the role needs.
Fallback creative	Plain text on a solid background: “UK company hiring appointment setters — work from home, UK hours, £350/mo + commission”. Ugly and effective.

Check the Special Ad Category before you launch. Meta treats employment adverts as a restricted category in some markets, which strips out most detailed targeting and leaves you with little more than location and a wide age band. If it applies to a South-Africa-targeted job ad, you can't target your way to the right person — the copy has to do the filtering instead. That's exactly why the adverts below lead with the hard requirements rather than burying them. Confirm the current position in Ads Manager on the day you build the campaign.

Where the applications land

One form, and it's deliberately a bit of a faff. Ten questions including a voice recording. Anyone who won't complete it wouldn't have made 90 dials a day either.
Auto-reply immediately with the voice-note task. Speed matters in recruiting for exactly the reason it matters in setting — good people are talking to several employers.
Keep it out of the Eco2u CRM. Applicants are not customers — a Google Form or a separate GoHighLevel form keeps the two data sets apart, which is the correct thing to do and saves a mess later.

Advert copy — ready to post

All of these lead with the hard requirements. That's deliberate: an advert that undersells the demands buys you a fortnight of interviews with people who were never going to work out. Every one of them states the pay, the hours, the equipment and the contractor status up front.

Fill these two before posting. The rand figures — convert £350 base and the £1,000–£2,000 range at the day's rate, and refresh them whenever you re-run the ad. And decide whether you're naming Eco2u NW or saying “a UK solar installation company”. Naming it converts better; hold it back only if there's a reason to.

Facebook ad — variant A: earnings-led lead with this one

Primary text Appointment Setter — work from home, UK hours, UK company 🇯🇦

We're a UK solar installation company and we're hiring one appointment setter in South Africa.

The job is simple to describe and hard to do well: you phone people who have already asked us about solar panels, have a friendly five-minute conversation, and book the good ones in with our specialist in England. No cold calling. No selling. Every single person you ring put their hand up first.

💰 What it pays
• £350/month base (about R[…]) — paid whatever happens
• £15 for every appointment that goes ahead
• £100 for every install that closes from your booking
• Realistic first 2 months: £1,000–£1,200/month. On target: £2,000+
• Paid in GBP via Wise, monthly

⏰ The hours
Mon–Fri, UK time, roughly 35–40 hours — and that includes the 5–8pm UK evening block, because that's when people answer. UK time is 1–2 hours behind you, so it's a normal working day.

✅ You need
• Excellent spoken English and a clear phone manner
• Phone sales, call centre or customer service experience
• Your own laptop and headset
• Reliable fibre plus mobile data as backup
• Backup power — inverter, UPS or generator. This is not optional. If load-shedding takes you off mid-shift, the role doesn't work.
• A quiet room. No background noise on calls.

📜 The terms, straight
Independent contractor, not employment. You handle your own SARS tax. Two-week paid trial, then two weeks' notice either way. Commission is paid on appointments that actually happen and installs that actually close — booking people who don't qualify earns you nothing.

We're hiring one person and training them properly. Full script, full system, daily support from the UK team.

👉 Apply here: [LINK]
Applications need a 60-second voice recording. It takes two minutes and we listen to every one.

Headline: Appointment Setter — UK Company, Work From Home · Description: £350/mo base + commission · UK hours · No cold calling · CTA: Apply Now

Facebook ad — variant B: filter-led

Deliberately off-putting. Fewer applications, better ones. Run it against A and see which produces better hires, not more clicks.

Primary text This job is not for everyone. Read it properly before you apply.

A UK solar company is hiring one appointment setter in South Africa.

You will be on the phone all day. 80–120 calls. Some people will be rude. You'll work until 8pm UK time because that's when people pick up. If load-shedding hits and you've no backup power, you can't do this job.

What you get for it:
• £350/month base, paid no matter what
• £15 per appointment that happens, £100 per install that closes
• £2,000+/month if you're good. Around £1,000 while you learn.
• Warm leads only — every person already asked us about solar
• A proper script and a UK team who answer you same day
• Paid in GBP via Wise, contractor basis

Don't apply if: your English isn't strong on the phone, you've no backup power or backup internet, you want flexible hours, or you're looking for something alongside another job.

Do apply if you've done phone sales or a call centre, you want a UK income from home, and you'd rather be paid for results than for hours.

👉 [LINK] — 60-second voice recording required.

Facebook ad — variant C: video script (30–45 sec)

Talking head, phone camera, no production. Tom or Ryan. Authenticity beats polish.

To camera Hi — I'm [Name] from Eco2u NW. We install solar panels in the north west of England, and I'm looking for one appointment setter in South Africa.

Here's the job. People fill in a form asking about solar. You ring them, you have a friendly chat, you check the roof's suitable, and you book them in with Ryan — he's our specialist here in Preston. No cold calling, no selling. They asked us first.

£350 a month base, £15 for every appointment that goes ahead, £100 for every install. Good month, you're on two grand.

You need proper English on the phone, a headset, and honestly — you need backup power. If load-shedding takes you out, this won't work.

Link's below. There's a voice recording on the form — I listen to every one myself.

Captions on. Most of this is watched with the sound off until something catches. First three seconds must show the pay or the words “UK company”.

Gumtree / OLX / job boards — long form

TitleAppointment Setter (Remote, UK Hours) — UK Solar Company — £350/mo Base + Commission

Body The company. Eco2u NW is a solar and battery installation company based in Preston, England. MCS certified, HIES registered, our own employed installation teams. We're expanding and we need someone to handle the first call with our enquiries.

The role. You call people who have already enquired with us about solar panels. You have a short, friendly conversation, you check a few things about their property, and you book an appointment for our solar specialist. You are not selling and you are not cold calling.

Day to day:
• 80–120 outbound calls, all to people who have enquired
• Call every new enquiry within 5 minutes
• Qualify against a clear checklist we'll train you on
• Book appointments into our specialist's diary, same day or next day
• Log everything in our CRM and hand over cleanly
• Follow up the ones who don't answer first time

What we pay:
• £350/month base retainer
• £15 per qualified appointment that goes ahead
• £100 per installation that closes from your booking
• £100/month quality bonus for hitting show-rate and accuracy targets
• Realistic: £1,000–£1,200 in month one, £2,000+ once you're up to speed
• Paid in GBP by Wise, monthly

Hours. Monday to Friday, 35–40 hours, UK time (currently 1–2 hours behind SAST), including 5–8pm UK.

Requirements:
• Excellent spoken English, clear and confident on the phone
• At least 1 year in phone sales, call centre, or customer service
• Own laptop and a proper headset
• Fibre internet plus mobile data backup
• Backup power — inverter, UPS or generator
• Quiet dedicated space to work
• Comfortable being coached — we review calls and role-play weekly

Nice to have: experience on UK campaigns, solar or home improvement, or GoHighLevel / any CRM.

Terms. Independent contractor, responsible for your own tax. Two-week paid trial. Two weeks' notice either side afterwards. Commission is paid on appointments that go ahead and installs that complete.

To apply: [LINK]. The form takes about 5 minutes and includes a 60-second voice recording — we listen to all of them. No voice note, no application.

Facebook group post — informal

Read the group rules first. Many require a tag, a day, or admin approval. One post per group, don't spam.

Post 📢 Hiring one appointment setter — remote, UK hours, UK company

We're a solar installation company in England. Looking for one person in SA to phone our enquiries and book appointments for our specialist. Warm leads only — no cold calling.

£350/month base + £15 per appointment + £100 per install. Around £1,000/mo while you learn, £2,000+ when you're good. Paid in GBP via Wise.

Mon–Fri UK hours (so 1–2 hrs ahead of you), including UK evenings up to 8pm.

You'll need strong spoken English, a laptop and headset, fibre + data backup, and backup power — that last one is non-negotiable, load-shedding mid-shift kills the role.

Contractor basis, 2-week paid trial. Full training and script provided.

Apply here 👉 [LINK] (there's a short voice recording on the form)

LinkedIn post

Post We're hiring one Appointment Setter in South Africa, working UK hours for a UK solar installation business.

Most setter roles are cold outbound. This one isn't — every contact has already enquired with us. The job is to reach them fast, qualify properly against a defined checklist, and book a remote video consultation the same or next day.

£350/month base, £15 per held appointment, £100 per closed installation. £2,000+/month on target, paid in GBP.

We're looking for someone with call-centre or BDR experience — ideally on a UK campaign — who wants coaching rather than a script to read. Weekly call reviews and role-plays are part of the role, not an add-on.

Requirements include reliable fibre, mobile data backup and backup power, for obvious reasons.

Details and application: [LINK]

The screening funnel

Five stages. Designed so that 90% of the work is done by stages 1 and 2, before you've spent a minute of your own time on anyone.

Application form — auto-filters

Ten questions. Anything answering “no” to backup power, backup internet or UK-hours availability is out automatically. Typically removes half.

The 60-second voice recording the best filter you have

On the form itself. Removes most of what's left, in seconds per candidate.

15-minute video interview

Run it on Teams, camera on — the same platform they'll be talking customers onto every day, so you find out now whether they can handle it. You're checking energy, listening, coachability, and seeing the actual room they'll work in.

Live role-play

Same call, straight after. You play the homeowner. Scored. See the role-play pack.

Two-week paid trial

Real leads, full rates, watched closely. The only assessment that actually tells you anything.

The voice-note task — word for word

On the form Record a voice note, up to 60 seconds, doing two things:

1. Read this out loud, as if you were on the phone to a customer:
“Hi, is that Sarah? Hi Sarah, it's [your name] calling from Eco2u NW, the solar installers. You popped an enquiry in with us about panels for the place in Preston. Have you got two minutes and I'll see if it's actually worth your while?”

2. Then, in your own words, tell us why you'd be good at phoning people all day.

Listen for	Pass	Fail
Clarity	Every word lands first time	You have to replay it
Warmth	Sounds like a person	Flat, robotic, or reading
Pace	Unhurried, confident	Rushing, or trailing off
Following instructions	Did both parts, inside 60s	Skipped part two, or rambled for four minutes
Background	Silent	TV, traffic, kids, echo

This one task predicts the hire better than the CV, the interview and the references combined. It tests the exact skill on the exact words, and it quietly tests whether someone reads instructions and does what's asked. Never skip it, and never let someone into the interview without it.

Application form — the ten questions

Full name, city, WhatsApp number, email
Do you have backup power for load-shedding? (Inverter / UPS / generator / None) — “None” auto-rejects
Internet: fibre / LTE / other — and do you have mobile data as a backup? (no backup auto-rejects)
Do you have your own laptop and headset? (no auto-rejects)
Can you work UK hours Mon–Fri including 5–8pm UK? (no auto-rejects)
Phone sales / call centre / customer service experience — where, how long, what were you calling about?
Have you worked on a UK or US campaign before?
Roughly how many calls a day were you making?
What are you looking to earn a month, in rand?
The voice recording (upload)

The interview — 15 minutes, camera on

Short on purpose. If the voice note was good, this is mostly about attitude and the room they'll be sitting in.

Min	Do	You're looking for
0–2	Explain the job in 60 seconds, then: “Any of that a problem?”	Do they listen, or start selling themselves over you?
2–5	“Walk me through a normal day in your last phone job.”	Real detail — call volumes, systems, targets. Vagueness means it didn't happen.
5–7	“Tell me about the last time someone was rude to you on a call. What did you do?”	Resilience without bitterness.
7–9	“Show me your setup. Turn the camera round.”	The actual desk, the actual room. Ask them to point at the inverter or UPS.
9–10	“What happens when load-shedding hits at 3pm on a Tuesday?”	A specific, rehearsed answer. Hesitation here is your answer.
10–14	The live role-play. No warning.	See the role-play pack — use scenario 1, then 3.
14–15	Give one piece of blunt feedback on the role-play, then ask them to run one line again.	The most important 60 seconds. Do they take it and change, or explain themselves?

✅ Hire signals

Asks what “qualified” means. Asks how commission is calculated. Takes the feedback and immediately does it differently. Has a real answer on power. Wants to know the targets.

🛑 Walk away

Talks over you. Can't name call volumes from their last job. Gets defensive at feedback. Vague on power or internet. Asks about “flexible hours”. Wants to know if they can do it alongside another job.

Hire two for the trial if you can afford it. Two people on the two-week trial for about £1,400 total is far cheaper than hiring one, finding out in week three that they don't work out, and starting the whole search again a month behind. You'll also learn more about the role from watching two people do it than from one.

The legal and practical setup

Six things to sort before anyone starts. None are hard; all are worse to fix afterwards.

1. Contractor status — get the agreement reviewed

Engage as an independent contractor, not an employee. That's the right structure: there's no UK entity in South Africa and no local payroll to run. The contractor handles their own SARS obligations.

The risk to be aware of. South African law can look past what a contract calls the relationship and test how it actually runs — set hours, a single client, provided tools and close supervision all point toward employment rather than contracting. This role has several of those features by design. It doesn't make the arrangement improper, but it does mean the agreement should be drafted or reviewed by someone who knows South African labour law rather than adapted from a UK template. Budget a few hundred pounds and get it done once — it covers every future hire too. Worth a word with Eco2u's accountant on the UK side at the same time.

2. Data protection — the bit most people miss

The setter will handle UK customers' names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses from outside the UK. Under UK data-protection law that's an international transfer, and Eco2u is the data controller — the responsibility sits with them, not with the setter.

South Africa isn't covered by a UK adequacy decision, so the transfer needs an appropriate safeguard — in practice the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to standard contractual clauses, plus a transfer risk assessment. confirm with whoever handles Eco2u's data protection
Eco2u's privacy notice should say that enquiries may be handled by personnel outside the UK.
Put confidentiality and data-handling clauses in the contractor agreement: no exporting lists, no personal spreadsheets, no customer data on personal accounts or devices.
Access through GoHighLevel only, on a named user account with its own login. Revoke it the day they leave.

3. Calling infrastructure

Item	Set up as
Outbound number	A UK number through GoHighLevel — ideally the Preston 01772 area code, or a UK mobile. Answer rates on a UK-looking number are far better than on an international one, and presenting a valid, dialable UK number is the rule anyway.
WhatsApp	The same UK business number the confirmations go out on, so the customer sees one consistent identity.
Call recording	Turn it on — it's how the coaching and the role-plays get better. If you record, say so at the start of the call and cover it in the privacy notice.
Consent	Every lead comes from a Meta form where they asked to be contacted. Make sure that consent wording is actually captured and stored against the lead — it's what makes the call legitimate. check the current form
Calling window	8am–8pm UK. Immediate stop and Do Not Contact on request, permanently.

4. Getting paid

Route	Cost	Verdict
Wise	Low FX fee	Recommended. Cheapest, fast, real exchange rate, straight into a South African account.
Payoneer	Higher	Fine fallback. Some contractors already have one and prefer it.
Deel / Remote (EOR)	~$50/mo per contractor	Handles the compliance paperwork for you. Worth it once there are three or more setters, overkill for one.
Bank transfer	High	Don't. Poor rates, slow, and the fees come out of their pay.

Pay on the same date every month. Late pay is the fastest way to lose a good remote contractor, and word travels in these communities.

5. Tools they need on day one

GoHighLevel login — named user, permissions limited to leads and Ryan's calendar
The UK outbound number and dialer, tested end to end before the first shift
WhatsApp Business access on the same number
The WhatsApp group — them, Ryan, Tom
This playbook, the role-play pack and the qualification gate
A shared doc for questions the script doesn't answer — it becomes version 2 of the script

6. Their side — verify, don't take their word

Backup power — make them show it on camera in the interview.
Fibre plus mobile data — ask for a speed test screenshot.
Headset, not laptop speakers. Non-negotiable, and audible immediately.
A quiet room with a door. You'll hear it on the voice note and see it on the interview.

Week one

Do not put a new setter on live leads on day one. Two days of preparation buys you a setter who sounds like they've been there a year.

Day	What happens
Mon	Tools set up and tested. Read the playbook end to end. Watch Ryan take one real appointment. Meet Ryan and Tom in the group chat.
Tue	Learn the qualification gate cold. Practise on Google Maps — twenty real addresses, call the roof on each, check the answers with Ryan. Role-plays 1–4.
Wed	Role-plays 5–8. Then live, on old and cold leads only — the ones already written off. Low stakes, real conversations.
Thu	First fresh leads, small batch. Ryan listens to two recordings and feeds back that day.
Fri	Full lead flow. End of week: review the numbers, run role-plays 9–12, set week two's target.

Week two is the real test — that's when the novelty has worn off and you find out whether they work the evening block and the chase ladder without being asked. Judge the trial on week two, not week one.

Attain Digital × Eco2u NW · appointment-setting system · internal · password-gated.