Awabah, a micro pensions company, has launched a WhatsApp-friendly customer service platform, ‘Lolo Chatbot’ to widen its reach and drive micro pensions, in its bid to promote financial inclusion through pension services.
“The Lolo Chatbot is a fully interactive application that is accessible using WhatsApp. Once you save the number and send ‘hi’, it does everything. It starts asking you questions and if for some reason the conversation has gone beyond the capability of the chat bot, it then directs you to the customer service representative who takes on the enquiry,” Tunji Andrews, chief executive officer, Awabah, stated at the hybrid unveiling of the Lolo Chatbot held in Abuja on Thursday 28, July.
According to Andrews, the new WhatsApp pension service is geared towards improving customer service, to make its pension services accessible spontaneously. “There are two things involved. First of all, it is accessible to everybody because almost everybody uses WhatsApp in Nigeria which means it is accessible to almost every person even for the old and the young but the second and more important thing is that we didn’t just make it a chatbot and just leave it at a chatbot; we made it a chatbot that has a customer service underlay, so if the person has a question that they can’t get answered by the chatbot, somebody is always on hand to answer the question, ” Andrews stated.
Read also: Stakeholders converge on Lagos to chart way forward for Nigeria’s retail sector
Speaking further, he noted that there is no need to download any app to access the interactive platform, which is a WhatsApp messaging platform enabled with a superjet response. According to him, the initiative is to bring customer service to the customer’s mobile phones.
“It is already on your phone without having to download one new app, or having to do anything out of the ordinary, it is just right there and the great thing about it is that if for some reason you wanted to do something, we can remind you from time to time,” he stated.
Motunde Adebowale-David (popularly known as Lolo 1), the face of the Awabah chatbot stated that besides the launch of the chatbot, Awabah is also creating awareness about micro pensions for both the educated and the uneducated.
“We are creating awareness and letting people know that micro pension is something that Nigerians need so that more people can empower themselves for the future. The chatbot is easy to interact with so you don’t need to worry so much, even if the person is uneducated, a little help from their children will help them to navigate the system,” she stated.
Ayodeji Asaolu, head of Micro Pensions, FCMB Pensions Limited, disclosed that there are plans to educate the public about the benefits of micro pensions and the incentives attached.
“We have lots of information that we want to disseminate to the public regarding the micro pension plan and that is why we came up with the strategy of a media campaign. This will sensitize the public,” he stated.
