How AI is Driving Multilingual Customer Experience in the Middle East

While Arabic and English remain the major business languages in both the UAE and the wider region, an impressively wide range of languages are spoken in the Middle East. In the UAE, this can be attributed to the large number of overseas workers. Expatriates make up approximately 88% of the population, with around 50% coming from the South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines (OriginalTravel). As such, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Tagalog, and Bengali all play an important role in Emirati society and commerce. The UAE’s reputation for quality of life also means that many european languages including Russian are widely spoken (PoliLingua).

Unsurprisingly, the Middle East’s linguistic diversity has a considerable impact on how individuals and organizations do business. While many organizations view this diversity as a challenge to overcome, we believe it’s an opportunity. 72% of consumers prefer to communicate with brands in their own language and more than half believe that the ability to get information in their first language is a more important purchasing factor than price (HBR). In other words, businesses that cater to and facilitate linguistic diversity will gain a competitive edge.

For many customers, the ability to speak to a business in their mother tongue is highly valued - it makes people feel respected, valued and heard. In industries where clarity is vital, such as banking and finance, it can make or break the service for a whole group of customers.

Communication tailored to language needs and cultural nuances encourages long-term loyalty among customers. In part, this is due to practical considerations. The better an individual understands a product or service, the easier it is for them to make an informed purchasing decision. However, it’s important not to underestimate the emotional draw either. Language as a communication tool is inherently emotional. It is “home”. It is composed of the sounds and grammar we are most comfortable with and that comes to us as second nature. Examining the words we use to describe it is instructive - your first language is your mother tongue. The emotional link is clear.

Ideally, all organizations operating in linguistically diverse markets would offer multilingual customer service. But for most, that isn’t realistic. Historically, it has required enormous investment in large teams and a commitment to certain channels. It also results in inflexible teams that are difficult to scale, affecting the agility of your customer support. It has made multilingual support prohibitively expensive and ensured it’s only available to large multinationals.

However, this is changing. Developments in conversational AI, intelligent chatbots, and language processing technologies are transforming the way businesses approach multilingual support and enabling them to provide quick, accurate, and cost-effective services. This technology allows organizations to remain flexible and scale multilingual customer support to meet demand without significant investment in human resources.

In many respects, the banking and financial services sector is leading the way when it comes to this type of AI-driven multilingual support. Trust, transparency and clarity all play key roles in banking services, and organizations that can deliver products and services in customers’ first languages gain a valuable competitive advantage. Whether it’s opening an account, providing details or terms for a loan, or offering financial advice, communicating in the customer’s native tongue reduces obstacles to service delivery and encourages long-term loyalty.

AI is transforming the customer experience and how organizations communicate with their customers. As such, automated multilingual support is likely to move quickly from being a competitive edge to a basic requirement. The rise of conversational AI and scalable language technologies is making it possible for businesses to provide such support, regardless of size or resources. In the Middle East, linguistic diversity is a major characteristic in society and commerce. That is not going to change. Over the next few years, it seems clear that most organizations will begin to integrate automated multilingual support into their customer-facing operations.

The question is - do you invest now and reap the benefits by distinguishing your organization from the competition and demonstrating your forward-thinking approach? Or do you wait until multilingual support is a must-have and all businesses offer it? In which case, you don’t benefit from earlier adoption.

Automated multilingual customer support is driving inclusive, customer experiences that encourage long-term customer loyalty and sustainable growth. It is ideally suited to the unique market conditions in the Middle East and arguably one of the most effective ways for businesses to differentiate. Demonstrating your ability to meet customers on their own terms, using their own language shows your commitment to providing smooth customer experiences that empower consumers.

Learn more about EDC’s Conversational AI and intelligent language solutions here.