Nigerian customer experience startup Identity has launched to empower businesses in Africa to be more customers oriented.
Identity was founded in October 3, 2017 by Tochukwu Egesi, a chartered banker and an accountant, who is also a tech enthusiast and IT savvy.
Identity offers customer experience software, which includes: ID VISIT, a flexible visitor management and appointment platform that enables you to position your brand as tech-savvy, secure your facility, reduce cost and improve visitor experience.
Also, there is the ID SERVICE a complete solution for customer flow Management developed based on the user experience; customers, staff and managers. It is the tool every organization needs to adapt to the ever increasing service efficiency demand. There is the ID SURVEY which is used to take immediate survey at the point of service and receive actionable insight immediately.
Speaking in an interview with Innovation Village on what inspired the idea behind Identity, Egesi said, “The setting up of identity was motivated by personal experiences. The stress and limitation of logbooks and poor customer experience rendered by some secretaries in some organizations fueled our quest to help businesses across Africa improve their customer experience because they end up being your business referral lines or even direct customers.”
Identity Tech is the first local company to develop a full service visitor and service management software. The Startup offers an end to end customer experience solution that is suitable for the Nigerian market.
Speaking on how the platform works, the founder said, “Identity Tech handles visitor management and queue management. Id Visit supports the receptionist as well as serving as a security solution for the organization.
“ID Visit Data is stored in the cloud for company report purposes and can be accessed from any location. Subsequently, with ID Service, customers can join a queue remotely or on-site, which is well suited for service based organizations. They are alerted by audio alerts or on a monitor when it is their turn to be attended to, individuals can also rate the services of their experience via text message.
“Conclusively, Identity helps eliminate multiple visitor and customer logbooks, enable service and visitor tracking while improving customer experience.”
While speaking on traction, Egesi revealed that the journey hasn’t been rosy but with an air of optimism he said, “With an innovative and dogged team, that are both passionate and hardworking, we have managed to carve a niche for ourselves and we have made an applaudable milestones over time. We intend to do more and gain more traction.”
Speaking on challenges encountered so far, the founder said, “Technology companies are seeing record profits, and in so many ways, are controlling the narrative of how business gets done globally. For the most part, we are aware that we are steadily climbing to global dominance as an industry but then like every company, we have faced some challenges such as difficulty in getting the best team in place on a tight budget, it wasn’t easy and the workplace culture of a startup is very tight, as everyone is involved with just about everything.
“Also, if you look at the progression of software from the introduction of the IBM PC to today’s systems, one obvious trend is irrefutable. The IT world has gotten increasingly complex. The complexity is rapidly reaching a point of critical mass, where one single developer can no longer know everything needed to be proficient at his or her job, because of this, teamwork is more important than ever. Our system rides several areas of tech infrastructure to deliver our service,” he added.
However, worthy of note is the fact that Identity has also recorded some achievements in the midst of its challenges to include raising investment from CC Hub and being part of their incubation program, being part of the FATE Foundation AEP Program, rising to the status of being a major enterprise user including NG-hub from Facebook, FCMB and MTN. The startup also gained notable press mentions including from Channels and Techpoint.
Egesi while counselling young entrepreneurs advised them to discover their passions and fully commit to them. He also advised them to evaluate their current set of skills versus what they need to know to run their new business. Understanding the market they are trying to penetrate also matters plus a good website as a sales tool. He also recommended they find mentors and give themselves to mentorship.
Speaking on the future plans for Identity, the founder said, “Innovation is one of our values as a company. As we explore the demands of our customers as regards the changing behavior of their own customer, we will improve our services. Most importantly we look forward to providing tools for managing customer experience for online services. We are looking to expand into other markets within the EMEA region.”
While commenting on the Nigerian Tech Ecosystem, Egesi said, “The debate on whether or not Nigeria has a functional tech eco-system has been ongoing for years. If there truly is an ecosystem. Is the current ecosystem sustainable? Do we have a strong foundation?
“The Nigerian startup ecosystem has seen tremendous growth with the emergence of business incubators and technology hubs but that’s just one side of the pentagon. We need the full support of the government, educational institutions, local community and existing businesses besides the hubs.
“Technically-grounded entrepreneurs are transforming lives. Whether in the fields of e-commerce, virtual reality or fintech, tech-entrepreneurs have disrupted the way Nigerians communicate, make purchases, order food and commute generally. Most of these changes are for the better. Nigeria is among the top 5 startup communities in Africa. The number of startups in the country is increasing every year but we need all sides of the pentagon to function properly for these startups to remain sustainable,” he stated.
