{
  "id": 1577986,
  "title": "The Call Businesses Can No Longer Make",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/17/the-call-businesses-can-no-longer-make",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-17T22:34:39.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "This Day",
    "slug": "this-day",
    "url": "https://www.thisdaylive.com/2026/08/17/the-call-businesses-can-no-longer-make/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In Nigeria, the phone call was once a crucial asset for businesses, enabling direct communication with customers. However, recent trends have turned this asset into a liability as more than half of the calls received by Nigerians are flagged as spam or fraudulent. This has led to a change in consumer behavior, where people often ignore unknown numbers. Consequently, businesses have struggled to rely on this communication channel, as customers no longer trust unknown callers. For small businesses, missed calls result in lost deals, while logistics and delivery businesses incur additional costs due to failed deliveries. Banks, in particular, suffer as customers become skeptical of their legitimate communication attempts. The issue lies in the inability of businesses to prove their legitimacy during crucial moments when customers decide to trust a call. The solution lies in integrating identity with the call itself, allowing businesses to establish a verified identity. Services like Truecaller for Business offer solutions such as Verified Business Caller ID, Business Call Reason, and Secure Call capabilities that provide businesses with a way to authenticate their calls, display a secure indication, and integrate these capabilities into their calling infrastructure. This shift in focus from simply owning a phone number to having a verifiable identity behind that number is crucial for businesses to regain the trust of their customers and ensure successful communication.",
  "summary": "By Tomiwa Aghedo For as long as anyone has done business in Nigeria, the phone call was an asset you owned. A number to reach a customer, confirm an order,",
  "key_points": [
    "Phone calls once vital for Nigerian businesses, now a liability",
    "Over half of calls flagged as spam or fraudulent",
    "Verified identity solution crucial for regaining customer trust"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}