The Managing Directors of Kaymu, Hellofood, Carmudi,
Lamudi and Easy Taxi – members of Africa Internet Group (AIG) have identified
trust as the greatest challenge faced by e-commerce in Nigeria.
This was stated at the Fireside Chat held by iDea
Nigeria, a Lagos-based incubator and accelerator for techpreneurs in Nigeria on
Friday October 23rd 2015.
Obi Ejimofo, Managing Director of real-estate
marketplace Lamudi.com.ng, opined that the only way to build trust is through
consistency. The challenge is to continue to innovate. "At Lamudi we are constantly evaluating
ourselves to improve the quality of our agents, our response time, customer
feedback and so on. As a result we came up with the Dial4Home, a hotline which
enables people speak directly to an operator who will guide them through their
property search and more recently the mortgage calculator which calculates the
mortgage cost on each property you buy on Lamudi.”
According to Kaymu Md, Sefik, the issue of trust is
prevalent everywhere in the world and companies need to come up with ways to
earn the confidence and loyalty of their stakeholders. At Kaymu we are
passionate about building and maintaining trust within our online community as
such we provide cash on delivery as well as online payment solutions through
Kaymu Safepay, which serves as an escrow service.
"We are constantly seeking ways to expand Kaymu
in the e-commerce eco-system while impacting on peoples lives daily. One of the
ways is by removing the distinction between online and offline. We have
launched the Kaymu Village within communities, a physical location which
accelerates interaction between buyers and sellers. We want to build inspiring
stories, like that of Chioma Agha, one of the sellers on our platform who was
selected to meet with Barack Obama and so we have created the Entrepreneurs
Club which provides a platform for sellers and entrepreneurs to exchange
ideas", Bagdadioglu added.
"A successful business is one that can preserve
the trust of it’s customers”, said Adaora Asala, MD of taxi hailing
appEasyTaxi. A bad experience with one
driver can have an adverse effect on all the other excellent drivers as such we
constantly train our drivers in-house and through collaborations with partners
such as Google and other government agencies to ensure they maintain acceptable
standards at all times.
With Food ordering site Hellofood every order is a
miracle, Guillaume Leblond Managing Director stated. People can wait for a few
hours, sometimes days to get their
clothes or cars or property but with food, they want it hot and on time, hence
we have had to pivot into logistics by owning our own delivery bikes to control
the customers experience
In addition we have a dedicated team offering
solutions to restaurants to ensure that customers trust us to deliver their
food few minutes from the time they ordered it.
Speaking on the one thing every startup needs to get
right, Leblond highlighted customer experience while Ejimofo pointed out the
need to select a good team. For Bagdadioglu it was ensuring the product
provides a solution to a prevalent problem, meanwhile Asala stressed the
importance of building a solid operational infrastructure through teamwork.
Managing director of vehicle marketplace, Amy
Muoneke advised startups to keep optimizing their products to ensure customers
keep seeing the value in their offerings. You need to identify your target
market to ensure you are providing goods and services that are useful and
relevant to them through the appropriate channels. For instance our target
market are people who are actively working towards owing or changing their cars
and so our resources are spent marketing to that sector of the market and we
are constantly developing new ideas and innovation that allows the buying and
selling of cars online via the Carmudi platform easier.'
The event was hosted to connect startup founders in
the Nigerian tech eco-system with AIG leadership for the purpose of sharing
knowledge, business showcase, product feedback and co-creation.
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