Bengaluru: CEO Slammed For Firing 90% Of Customer Care Staff By Replacing Them With Chatbot

At a time when many tech stocks are riding high on the artificial intelligence (AI) craze and more and more companies are joining the AI push, a Bengaluru based startup's founder has drawn ire for a decision related to AI.

CEO Fires 90% Of Staff By Replacing Them With Chatbot

Suumit Shah/twitter

Founder and CEO of Bengaluru-based e-commerce firm Dukaan, Suumit Shah, is facing the anger of social media users for a recent Twitter post in which he announced that his company has replaced 90% of its customer care crew with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.

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 ?

¡ª Suumit Shah (@suumitshah) July 10, 2023

As the post began to gain traction and crossed more than a million views, Twitter users slammed him for making such a harsh decision that would have an impact on many employees' lives.

The startup's CEO tweeted a justification of his decision and added that this challenging move was done to achieve profitability. He further asserted that response times decreased from more than two hours to three minutes and that costs associated with customer support were reduced by 85%.

"We had to lay off 90 percent of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely," Shah tweeted. "Given the state of the economy, startups are prioritising "profitability" over striving to become "unicorns", and so are we," Shah added.

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What The CEO Said About Compensating Laid-Off Employees

istock

When asked by a Twitter user about the assistance provided to the laid-off staff, Shah said, "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 (I will post about this on LinkedIn, here on Twitter people only look for "profitability" and not "sympathy")."

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.

Also - "it was tough decision" ?

¡ª Suumit Shah (@suumitshah) July 10, 2023

But social media users were not impressed by his explanation and decision.

Twitter Users Slam The CEO's Decision

One of the Twitter users who replied to the startup's CEO's tweet mentioned, "The most heartless tweet I¡¯ve ever seen.@ojasvi_yadav should be ashamed to be associated with you."

The most heartless tweet I¡¯ve ever seen.@ojasvi_yadav should be ashamed to be associated with you.

¡ª Brett @ Designjoy (@BrettFromDJ) July 11, 2023

One more Twitter user expressed her anger at the post, saying, "How do I unread this?"

How do i unread this.

¡ª Saloni Mittal (@whysaloni) July 11, 2023

Another user pointed out, "How do we also replace the customers with bots?"

how do we also replace the customers with bots?

¡ª aufek (@aufek) July 11, 2023

Another Twitter user slammed the CEO's decision, saying, "Dude, You disrupted the lives of 90% of your support team & you're celebrating it in public. You also likely destroyed your customer support (disprove with good CSAT for the bot) - all for a basic ChatGPT wrapper. ???¡á????¡á? This is a new low even for you."

Dude,

You disrupted the lives of 90% of your support team & you're celebrating it in public. You also likely destroyed your customer support (disprove with good CSAT for the bot) - all for a basic ChatGPT wrapper. ???¡á????¡á?

This is a new low even for you.

¡ª Lakshmi Narayanan G (@_glnarayanan) July 11, 2023

"The guy who laid off people over zoom did a much better job than whatever this is. We¡¯ve lost all empathy, have we?," said another user.

The guy who laid off people over zoom did a much better job than whatever this is. We¡¯ve lost all empathy, have we?

¡ª Neelesh Salian ? (@neelesh_salian) July 11, 2023

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