Peeping at the Nigerian Research and Development
Centres: NAERLS Test Running Farmers National Helpline Centre II
My last note in the first part of this article was a
question I asked "When can Nigerians start to enjoy National Farmers
Helpline Centre (NFHC)?” The journey of NFHC to the present position was
tortuous with several ups and downs but by dint of hard work and dedication,
NAERLS was able to transform the NFHC from of mere conception of idea to the
present reality. However, the journey of NFHC to its final destination where it
can achieve its primary objective is not yet over. The primary objective of
NFHC is to provide timely, relevant and proven information and advisory agricultural
extension services to stakeholders in Nigerian agricultural industry. Such
information and services will definitely facilitate decision-making of the
agricultural value chain actors along the entire agricultural network with
likely outputs of tripling the national productivity of the agricultural sector. What are the necessary requirements for the
centre to be fully operational and efficient?
In order to have an efficient and
sustainable call center, NAERLS has to collaborate with relevant stakeholders
in the area of capacity building and access to the research results of the
National Agricultural research Institutes and centres. This is because the
success of a call center largely depends on the technical skills of the
personnel, robust and evidence based agricultural technologies at its disposal.
High caliber human resources with vast experience on agricultural subjects and
ICT are required to manage the centre as well as provide support to it. Therefore,
the fundamental areas of capacity building for the NAERLS staff required are training
of Call Agent/Subject Matter Specialist, Technical Support, training on Contact
Centre Management, Content development and management. These trainings could be
on-site or off-site with emphasis to integration of the ICT and agricultural knowledge
based services. Thus, NAERLS has opened its doors for support and collaboration
to achieve the desired results.
In the mean time, the centre has acquired the
knowledge based software, a prerequisite for the content development and its
successful operation. With a rich and wide range of agricultural extension
publications, NAERLS specialists are assiduously working to digitize and
populate the knowledge based software for use by the call agents. So far,
thousands of pages of the content covering more than 80 agricultural
commodities and practices have been developed. When the content is fully
developed, call agents will be receiving calls from farmers, researchers,
students and interested individuals on issues or problems in respect of their
farming, marketing and processing as case may be. The call agents will look for
the answers to the queries received from callers by keying in the appropriate
"catchy" words in the knowledge based software, which promptly
prop-ups the relevant answers from the content. These content development
activities are number one priority for the smooth operation of the centre. It
is imperative that other relevant stakeholders should come forward to help in
the content development to facilitate the smooth take up. In addition to content
development, software at NAERLS disposal was developed by private agency which
has exclusive copy right, which limits the use of the software by NAERLS.
Hence, it is desirable that NAERLS ICT personnel should be supported to develop
their software for effective and sustainable utilization to serve the Nigerian
population. This requires the support of public agencies such as National
Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Backbone Galaxy among
others to rely round NAERLS for this important national assignment.
Another key priority is building the capacity of the
call agents. NAERLS is starting with thirty call agents who are mostly
graduates of agriculture sciences and engineering. Although, they have been
working as agricultural extensionist, subject matter specialists and
technologists but their new task of receiving and answering calls is daunting
and challenging and thus, requires special training on contact/calls handling.
The next in the
list of priorities is the contact centre management training. The Information and Computer Technologies are
evolving at exponential proportion. In
order to keep up with global trend and best practices in this area of
information dissemination using call centre,
the call centre managers must be regularly and promptly trained on
knowledge and practices regarding installation, management and maintenance
skills of the centre equipment and services.
The next important task is the
use of the short code to call the center. It is gratifying that the centre with
strong facilitation of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development (FMARD) secured a short code from National Communication Commission
as 1442 for usage by the callers. However, this short code is yet to be
integrated into the country’s major GSM service providers (MTN, Airtel, Glo,
etc) for easy access and cost effective to users. Although, efforts are on top
gear for the short code integration but it is doubtful if the calls using the
short code will be toll free services to farmers as revealed by the ongoing
discussion at the stakeholders meeting. Some of the stakeholders are of the
opinion that the calls should be charged for efficient and sustainable
operation of the centre. The view of NAERLS experts is to have toll free call
services using the short code, at least in the first two years of centre’s
operation while charges should be shared among the GSM service providers as
part of their corporate social responsibility. The government can help by
providing incentives to the GMS service providers inform of tax relieve and
provision of infrastructure or subsidy to the callers. This is most desirable
and attractive to our massive peasant farmers.
Another important issue requiring
effort is awareness creation of the centre services. Here, an intensive
campaign using both electronic and print media is required to sensitize
Nigerians on access to these phones and internet based agricultural advisory
services. This certainly requires funds for reaching out to millions of
Nigerian farmers to spread the news. Mass media can play key roles in this
regard.
How
will the centre provide it’s services? The call centre is a two level
interaction system which consists of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Human
Response (HR). At the first level of interaction with the caller, an
interactive voice will respond to caller, the system is designed to response in
the five major communication media in Nigeria (English, pidgin, Hausa, Igbo and
Yoruba). The caller will choose the language he or she prefers to communicate.
Then, there will be pre-recorded answers or responses on the specific questions
of the agricultural commodity value chain using frequently ask questions (FAQ),
questions and answers (Q&A) already catalogued from the previous NAQAS
database. Where the needs or queries of the caller are met at this level, the
communication ends. But where the caller’s needs/questions are not met or answered,
he or she is transferred to an agent (help desk at the centre), who is a
specialist in the area so concerned and proficient in the language of the
enquirer. Meanwhile, all calls are recorded so as to enrich the database of the
centre. There will be call escalation for cases unresolved or questions
unanswered, the caller is profiled and stored on the system and later contacted
or given toll-free access to the contact at the Centre. The call escalation
will use the services of experts within NAERLS, other agricultural research
centres or even outside Nigeria using the internet services or video
conferencing tools. The centre can also use bulk Short Message Services (SMS)
to send information millions of farmers on the thematic subjects, example
information on weather, inputs, markets and early warning or advices as case
may be.
In
conclusion, NFHC is being prepared to service millions of Nigerians and beyond.
NAERLS, the custodian of the centre alongside her twin “mothers”; ABU Zaria and
FMARD Abuja is tirelessly working to officially launch the centre and link it
up with the regional centres at NCRI Badegi, IAR and T Ibadan, IAR Zaria and
NRCRI Umudike for effective geographical coverage of the nation. Relevant
stakeholders should not stay aloof, should join this bandwagon of making history
for a better Nigeria.
