Bengaluru-based startup Dukaan is at the centre of a controversy after it fired 90 per cent of its customer support team and replaced them with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.
A tweet of Suumit Shah, founder of Dukaan, sparked an outrage online for saying that the chatbot had drastically improved first response and resolution time of customers' queries.
According to BBC, many users criticised his tweets and accused him of disrupting the lives of his staff with this "heartless" decision.
"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," he tweeted.
Suumit Shah is the co-founder and CEO of Dukaan, a DIY platform which allows merchants and retailers even those with zero programming skills to set up their e-commerce store. Shah launched Dukaan in June 2020 with Subhash Choudhary, co-founder and CTO of the company, according to DNA India.
Before Dukaan, Shah founded Rankz.io and Risemetric in 2018 and 2014, respectively. Shah is an entrepreneur and a product designer. He belongs to Mumbai. He holds a degree in engineering. After learning major courses online, Suumit worked with various big corporations including Mcdonald’s and Cred, as per reports, the report said.
He has also worked with Housing.com and TinyOwl as Digital Marketing Manager. Suumit then went on to start his own business called Risemetric, along with his friend Subhash. After four years, he founded Rankz.io in 2018, the DNA India report added.