Arabic chatbots make inroads in the Middle East

Customers in the Middle East are becoming increasingly familiar with being greeted by friendly chatbots — virtual helpers that are available day or night for all kinds of burning questions. From Dubai’s sprawling malls to Cairo’s bustling hospitals, Arabic-speaking chatbots are streamlining the customer experience while offering lucrative growth opportunities to businesses that adopt them.

AI-powered chatbots provide 24/7 support in Arabic while saving time and reducing operational costs, allowing companies to optimise their use of talent and resources. They’re not just cost-savers but revenue boosters: Chatbots are reliable digital assistants that guide customers not only to vital information but also can introduce them to new products and services that they didn’t even know that they wanted. The benefits go far beyond the initial interaction: Detailed customer data provides valuable insights in real time that can take your business to new heights.

While some linguistic challenges related to the complexity of the Arabic language initially delayed the deployment of chatbots in the Middle East, technological advances in the field of machine learning have introduced a bevy of new automated chat services that use natural language processing (NLP) to engage customers in organic conversations in local dialects like Egyptian, Emirati, and Saudi Arabic.

Chatbots cut costs for businesses

Studies show that the technology can cut global business costs by $1.3 trillion per year by reducing the resources spent on customer-service agents answering common questions. The front-line support of chatbot technology empowers the remaining customer-service teams by letting team resources be distributed more efficiently and dedicate themselves to meaningful tasks, rather than wasting time answering the same routine questions. They expand a company’s reach, allowing customers to interact any time and from anywhere in the world, overcoming the limitations of traditional customer service hotlines based in a specific time zone.

AI-powered chatbots ask the most important questions that can help businesses identify quality leads. For existing customers, chatbots are powerful tools for cross-selling and upselling, using customer data to make highly personalised recommendations to customers by anticipating their needs and identifying unexplored revenue opportunities.

There is a range of AI-powered Arabic chatbot services available across the Middle East, with notable examples being Arabot, Botpress, Widebot, and Botter. “We use the Botter chatbot for our labs and scan centres, and now we’re able to serve more patients than we used to when we didn’t have an Arabic chatbot,” says the CTO of a leading consumer healthcare group in the Middle East. “Our customers are now able to quickly and easily retrieve their lab tests, enquire about lab test pricing, and request home visits. It’s just a matter of a few clicks. … Our company offloaded our contact-centre agents by 70% and reached out to a wider range of customers by deploying our Arabic chatbot over different channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and our website. Soon, we plan to use it on our Android and iOS app to broaden our reach.”