New Delhi: Founder and CEO Suumit Shah said on Tuesday that e-commerce firm Dukaan had replaced 90% of its customer care crew with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. He attributed the reduction in customer support expenditures by 85% and the decline in resolution time from more than two hours to three minutes to the choice to prioritise profitability.
“We had to lay off 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely,” Shah tweeted. Several users criticised the tweet, thinking it as insensitive. “Given the state of the economy, startups are prioritising “profitability” over striving to become “unicorns”, and so are we,” Shah added.
He spoke in great detail about Lina, the AI assistant he said will replace generic, delayed responses, few resources, and poor communication. Shah announced the organisation is hiring for several positions after 12 tweets. In answer to a question on Twitter regarding the support given to the fired employees, he advised them to keep an eye out for his LinkedIn post and reiterated that it was a difficult choice.
“As expected, ‘someone’ will get offended on behalf of ‘someone else’, so I had this reply ready: Assistance ke bare mein jab Linkedin pe post karunga tab dekh lena mere dost, yahaan Twitter pe log “profitability” dekhte hai “sympathy” nahi”, Shah tweeted. “Laying off is never a pleasant experience, why is the need to proclaim and be proud about it,” a Twitter user wrote.
