The successful internet corporation Yahoo! is expanding its customer care services to cover nine new world languages.
The company is working with IBM to operate a call centre out of Cairo, Egypt that offers help in Arabic, French, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. The chief focus will be on Arabic.
Rather than using automated translation services, IBM will hire "a significant number" of multilingual staff to deliver "world-class customer care."
"Yahoo! has made a strong commitment to growth in the Middle East, and our new support for Arabic-speaking users around the world is a significant milestone toward our goals for the region," said Jeff Russakow, Executive VP of Customer Advocacy for Yahoo! He added that "to remain close to our customers" was part of the company's culture.
Amr Talaat of IBM Egypt said, "The services delivered from this center will help Yahoo!'s Middle East, North African, and European users benefit from the talent pool and customer care solutions deployed here."
In 2009, Yahoo! acquired Maktoob.com, a leading Arabic internet portal that combines Yahoo! products, such as email, search engines and messenger services, with local content.
Then this week, Yahoo! announced it was partnering with Rotana, the Arab world's leading entertainment company. Rotana will provide content that Yahoo! can stream through its Arabic websites.
The Middle East represents a rapidly growing market for the internet.
IBM has also opened an increasing number of service centres worldwide, including in China, India and Poland.
12 July 2010
Go back to July 2010