The global outsourcing industry has seen tremendous growth in the last couple of decades and is touted to grow even further in the years to come. India, once being the hub of business process outsourcing (BPO) is being quickly replaced by other geographies such as Philippines and more recently the second largest continent in the world aka Africa. With South Africa already speeding ahead and developing a strong infrastructure of both personnel and other resources, it’s time to shift our focus towards another emerging leader from the African continent – Nigeria
The Changing Contact Center Landscape
The Demographics
Nigeria is blessed with a relatively younger population. Of the 200 million citizens, the median age is around 18 years. These compelling statistics are a positive indicator of a huge resource pool and greater potential workforce. Also, since English is the language of business in Nigeria, the population is generally quiet comfortable in conversing in the same. There is no doubt that the BPO industry is one of the largest employers and can absorb massive number of well-trained and certified individuals. So, with the right training programs which allow the people to further hone their skills along with training them in others such as basic computer training and any advanced programs depending on the business needs, we can give a boost to the employment rate as well.
Increasing Tech Penetration
The internet has enabled billions of people and businesses to connect with each other. Nigeria is no exception to that. With 115 million internet users, Nigeria has seen a steady increase in the internet penetration across the country. This trend has further led to an increase in the social media and smartphone usage as well. Though the emerging picture is looking good but a lot still needs to be done if Nigeria wants to be put on the global outsourcing market. With the right telecommunication infrastructure and faster broadband speed, Nigeria can easily become the BPO hub that it has the potential to be.
The Omnichannel Shift
People are increasingly using various channels to reach out to the business. Gone are the days when customers used to call and report their issue. Today, they expect the brand to be available on the channel of their choosing. And the businesses which do not match the pace, will lose out on the market share. It’s time to transform your call centers into Customer Engagement Centers which support multiple channels such as voice, email, social media and chat support. The businesses can leverage a call center software which allows them to not only offer omnichannel customer support but at the same time gives a holistic view of the customer to the agents.
Legacy to Digitization
One of the major challenges for any organization is to effectively use their existing resources to maximize ROI. Legacy call center setups need to move towards digitization if they want to accommodate customer demands. The good news is that, with the right call center software vendor, one can augment the existing technology with the new-age setup using call center integrations. By doing this, the businesses do not have to suffer losses due to obsolete technology and can in fact add-on the contact center software on top of that. Thus, converting the cost centers into customer engagement centers.
The Way Ahead
There is no doubt that outsourcing benefits the host country in multiple ways. Nigeria can leverage its abundant human-infrastructure and open its gates to the ever expanding call center industry and use this opportunity to promote higher employment rate and increase the sector’s contribution to GDP growth. This is just the beginning. Nigeria has a plethora of possibilities to be the next big thing in the call center technology space.
