Using Call Centres To Bridge Poverty Gaps Among Unemployed Youths

Due to the recent economic recession, more people have become unemployed adding to the security problems that are plaguing the country. Evelyn Okoruwa writes on how call centres could bridge poverty gap by providing makeshift jobs for the country’s teeming youths.

Nigeria has experienced a lot of issues recently ranging from insecurity, poverty, unemployment of the youths which have resulted in different social vices such as militancy, robbery, prostitution and a lot more.

Some of these problems can definitely be solved if there are employment opportunities in other sectors apart from the oil sector.

A lot of people has the impression that the oil sector is the only important sector in the economy, but according to the chairman house committee on communication, Hon. Oyetunde Ojo, “after the petroleum sector, I think the next sector is the telecommunication industry, if I must be honest with you, it is even more important than the petroleum sector because if you don’t have a car, you won’t be bothered, but once you don’t have a phone in your pocket, it will seem as if your entire day is completely messed up”.

The technology industry in Nigeria still has a lot of untapped resources. Experts have suggested that there is the need to tap into other areas in the technology industry, particularly the call centres.

A call centre is a centralised location used by organisations for purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of request from the public by utilising the telephone.

A Contact centre can be bi-directional such as receiving and disseminating information. We also have the emergency call centre, where people can call in when they are in distress or if they notice a suspicious movement.

Research has showed that the call centre has worked tremendously in India. It has been estimated that India makes $70 billion from outsourcing call centre services per annum.

Experts have also opined that if Nigeria could get 10 per cent of the business that goes to Indian, then in no time Nigeria could make $10 billion annually from outsourcing call services.

Before now, US had major outsourcing companies, where the unit cost per head was $20 per hour. Indians took advantage of the high cost and started their own outsourcing business in their country, making their cost $2 per hour.

When American businesses saw that Indians offered the same service and at a cheaper rate, they all moved the business to India, so instead of paying $20 in USA, they paid the Indian company $2 per hour for service rendered.

But the story right now has changed as India has become expensive; they now charge $7 per hour. Experts have argued that Nigeria should key into the opportunity by starting call centres, so that they can get the businesses that otherwise would have gone to India, while adding that it will be a great boost for the economy.

Apart from getting foreign business, there is also the need to encourage local businesses to have call centres in order to help them improve on their quality of service.

Also, a lot of jobs will be created in the process and it will go a long way in addressing the security issues, because if people are employed, they would not engage in frivolous activities. It will also bring the people closer to the government.

According to Mr. David Onu, Chairman, Association of Call Centre Operators of Nigeria (ACCON), many people are employed in India, even though they are not employed at the highest level, but it goes far in solving unemployment problems. “We are talking about this security issue going on in the country; the reality is that if we are able to create more employment opportunities, it will reduce drastically”.

He also opined that the fastest way to create jobs is through outsourcing even as he said countries such as India, Pakistan and china have made a lot of success and that Nigeria shouldn’t be an exception.

In his word; “in Nigeria today, information is an essential commodity, before you readily get an answer to some questions from any place, whether public or private sector, you go through stress, unless you know someone there, you may not necessarily get what you want”.

While hinting that outside the country, they realised that everyone had a phone or at least access to a phone, “they realised there was a cost on both parties to get information.

Abroad, both public and private sectors have call centres because they realised that the easier and fastest way to communicate with people is with the telephone.” While advising that there is the need to create a platform were people can call and get the necessary information, saying not just through internet because not everybody have access to the internet.

He also said many people have the impression that the government is not working even as he said it is because people are not informed but if government offices have call centers were they can keep the public abreast of what the government in doing, will go a long way to bridge the gap that has been created.

“We have a feeling in our country that government is bad but honestly there are some agencies in government that do a lot of work, one that I’m very much in love with is National Primary Healthcare Delivery (NPHD).

They work, they go inside the rural areas and they have all this malaria intervention program, midwifery, whereby they train midwifes and send them to the rural areas because the maternal mortality is very high.”

“But nobody knows about it. But because people don’t know, the assumption is that the government is not working but with a call center, you can publicise your activities.

People can reach you and get information, so that it will dispel that notion that government does not work because it does work.

Yes they don’t work as much as they should but lets us not just say they don’t do anything because they actually do something.”

He further explained that public organisation can improve through the call centre at the same time create employment opportunities because the bulk of the problems in Nigeria is poverty which can be traced to unemployment. “You will find that most of these social problems we are having whether it is robbery, prostitution will be reduced greatly if people are receiving income”, even as he said that the industry has the capacity of generating 10 million jobs.

On the issue of the creation of emergency call centre, the Director public affairs of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr. Tony Ojobo said the importance of the Call centre is an understatement even as he said it is now a prerequisite. He said Nigeria will operate its model after the United States emergency call centre where three digit numbers are used. He hinted that it will enable people remember the number with ease.

In his words, “we decided to have a general number which is 112 because it is difficult for instance if fire service, police, ambulance services etc. have separate numbers. People find it difficult to remember all the numbers so the need arose for a general number.”

He further informed that each of these emergency call centres is going to have fire service, ambulance and other things stationed so that whenever there is a distress call, there will be quick response.

He also hinted that the pilot emergency call centres are ready of which one is stationed in Minna, Niger State and the other in Awka, Anambra State. “The pilot emergency call centres cover a lot of areas. The one in Minna can cover for Abuja” even as he reminded that they are just a model, therefore will run for a short period of time.

“They will run for like a month. We want to see how it works. We want to see the number of responses we get from it”, Ojobo added.

Similarly, the Managing director of Consolidated Solution Limited (ConSol), Mr. Adeoye said by creating emergency call centre, the Lagos State Government has been able to reduce crime rate in Lagos by about 85 per cent through the establishment of a toll-free 3-digit short code for emergency access to the Lagos State emergency response contact centre.

He further informed that through the emergency response contact centre, the police, fire, ambulance and all other emergency response agencies have been integrated for easier escalation of distress calls originated by the needy public.

Adeoye also hinted that creating of call centre will help address the president’s job creation agenda even as he estimated that there are about 5,000 government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in Nigeria and that if every MDA has on average, a call centre that employs 20 people, that is already a 100,000 jobs creation.

While adding that larger ones like the police can have a call centre of between 5,000 to 10,000 people. “So about 100,000 to 500,000 jobs can be created within a short space of time”, he enthused.

He further opined that it will address the rising problem of terrorism in the country and will also boost the economy in terms of revenue generation and job creation.

According to him, “one of the benefits of a call centre is that it provides easy access to emergency services like in the case of Boko Haram and the Niger Delta militants attacks. A lot of their activities can be tracked down by the public if the call centre is in existence.”

“The emergency call centre has worked in Lagos as the crime rate has reduced by 85 per cent and there has been a tremendous increase in the economy as businesses are springing up because the environment is safe in the last four years.”

He further informed? that if India can make over $70 billion per annum from its ITES/BPO industry, Nigeria has the potential to make at least 10% of that which is approximately ($7bn) annually within the next two to three years, if the Government throws its weight behind the BPO industry.?

In his words, ‘Anticipating that a predominant amount of this quoted revenue is expected from off-shoring of call centre services to clients in Europe and America.?

Nigeria has all the elements that can make this a reality including, young employable workforce, large English speaking population and better time zone alignment with Europe and Americas, and Government of course will gain a significant amount from this through taxes and levies.

Mr. Onu also informed that ACCON is reaching out to telecoms operators so as to join forces, stating that it is expedient to create standards for call centres. “We are reaching out to the telecoms operators to come and join us so that we can sit down together and create the right standards, guidelines to govern how this industry should be run.

Things like certification, so that we can create a common certification for people working in call centres, and also the working conditions in order to sanitise the industry.

He further stated that the government will definitely benefit from it because? the call center is primarily a cost cutting platform as it reduces the cost of running government.

The opening of various call centres in Nigeria will definitely have a boost on the economy in terms of revenue generation. It would give room for people to be gainfully employed, get access to information whenever they need it and above