Dukaan lays off 90% of customer support staff for AI bot

E-commerce startup Dukaan has replaced 90% of its customer support team with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot for an increased prioritising of profitability. Suumit Shah, Founder and CEO of Dukaan, had taken to Twitter to make the announcement.

As reported by NewsDrum, with the recent move, Dukaan’s customer support costs were reduced by 85% while resolution time went down from over two hours to three minutes.

We had to layoff 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot.

Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

The results?

Time to first response went from 1m 44s to INSTANT!
Resolution time went from 2h 13m to 3m 12s
Customer support costs reduced by ~85%

Here's how's we did it

— Suumit Shah (@suumitshah) July 10, 2023

“We had to lay off 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely,” Shah had tweeted first, soon after which the netizens not only criticised the move but also deemed it insensitive.

“Given the state of the economy, startups are prioritising ‘profitability’ over striving to become ‘unicorns’, and so are we,” Shah added.

He then explained in detail how Lina, the AI assistant he claimed, replaces generic and delayed responses, as well as limited availability of resources and poor communication.

After about 12 tweets, Shah also stated that the company is hiring for multiple roles.

Upon being questioned about the assistance provided by the e-commerce startup to its laid-off employees, Shah asked them to look out for his LinkedIn post, reiterating that it was a tough decision.

“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.

Another Twitterati said, “Laying off is never a pleasant experience, why is the need to proclaim and be proud about it”.

The announcement comes after Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar deemed any concerns about AI threatening jobs "nonsense".

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