Enterprise e-commerce platform for businesses Dukaan announced on Twitter that it has replaced 90% of its support team with an AI chatbot. The move has cut costs and reduced issue resolution times but has been met with significant backlash online.
“We had to layoff 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot,” Tweeted Dukaan’s founder and CEO Suumit Shah on July 11. “Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.”
According to Shah’s Tweet, the business’ time to first response on a query was reduced from 1 minute 44 seconds to instant and the resolution time was reduced from 2 hours 13 minutes to 3 minutes 12 seconds. The move also reduced the business’ customer support costs by around 85%.
The Tweet has already crossed two million views and has had an overwhelmingly negative response. While some Twitter users opined that the move was more likely motivated by a lack of funding and subsequent need to cut costs, others criticised Shah for not thinking of his employees as human beings. The issue does highlight how the Indian e-commerce industry could be transformed by AI and the cost that could have on employees.
Dukaan launched in 2020 and works with businesses including skincare brand Wow Skin Science and clothing brand Offduty among others. The business has developed a chatbot named ‘Lina’ which has already completed over 1,400 support tickets, according to Shah.
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