Many Nigerian small and medium-sized enterprises are experiencing steep drops in sales, and a major culprit is emerging: sluggish and inconsistent replies on WhatsApp and Instagram — platforms that have quietly become the country’s busiest commercial spaces.
This insight came from PressOne Africa, a Techstars-backed cloud communications company, which warned that uncoordinated customer service on direct-message channels is draining businesses of significant revenue they never realise they lost.
The company explained that today’s customers judge a business far beyond its products. How quickly a message is answered now determines whether buyers see a brand as professional, credible, or worth returning to. A single unanswered DM, the firm emphasized, is often enough for a shopper to immediately switch to a competitor.
To help businesses tackle this problem, PressOne Africa has introduced Juliet — an AI-powered virtual staff member built to handle customer conversations with speed and consistency. Juliet responds instantly, maintains a unified brand tone, and manages inquiries across WhatsApp, Instagram, and other messaging platforms.
PressOne Africa’s CEO, Mayowa Okegbenle, noted that Juliet has already proven economically valuable. According to him, the company initially prepared to hire a large customer support team this year, but that plan was abandoned once Juliet demonstrated she could manage the workload.
“We had allocated millions to build out our support department,” Okegbenle said. “Juliet took over the entire function. The savings we made have been redirected into growth and marketing.”
Juliet was first developed for internal use, created to address PressOne Africa’s own challenges: unpredictable message volumes, the need for instant responses, and varying employee performance. After six months of testing — with results that far exceeded expectations — the tool was released to Nigerian businesses.
Unlike traditional chatbots that follow fixed scripts, Juliet learns from real customer interactions. She understands the products she represents, interprets customer intent, and guides buyers from their initial questions all the way to payment completion.
PressOne Africa stressed how easily sales can collapse on social media. A late response, a confusing message, or a missed follow-up can end a transaction that should have been successful. Customers expect immediate attention, and when businesses fail to deliver, they simply move on.
The company, already known for making business phone lines accessible to SMEs, believes Juliet will help entrepreneurs convert more conversations into revenue, reduce the constant pressure of handling customer messages manually, and prevent the financial leaks caused by delayed replies.
As millions of Nigerian businesses continue to use WhatsApp and Instagram as their main sales channels, Juliet enters the market at a crucial time — offering SMEs a chance to operate with the speed and consistency required in today’s fast-moving digital economy.
