An e-commerce CEO has just fired 90 percent of his support team in favor of an AI chatbot.
After the CEO of Dukaan announced the move on Twitter, he received hundreds of replies from people telling him he was making a huge mistake.
“Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely,” Suumit Shah wrote.
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After replacing humans with the AI chatbot, Shah said he saw an immediate improvement in output and it reduced his customer support costs by 85 percent.
He said the chatbot was resolving customer queries in just two minutes whereas before it took his human team about two hours.
The 31-year-old CEO admitted he was initially “as skeptical as a cat at a dog show” but did a 180 as soon as he saw the working demo of the chatbot.
“The bot was answering almost all common questions about Dukaan instantly and accurately,” he said.
Shah said he knew it was “less magical” but said “at least it pays the bills”.
“Given the state of the economy, startups are prioritizing profitability over striving to become unicorns, and so are we,” he said.
He said the chatbot, called Lina, was working so well, he compared it to the movie ‘Limitless”.
The young CEO took a beating from Twitter users accusing him of having no empathy.
“The guy who laid off people over Zoom did a much better job than whatever this is. We’ve lost all empathy have we?” one said.
“Dude, you disrupted the lives of 90 percent of your support team and you’re celebrating it in public… this is a new low,” another said.
Others questioned Shah about the overall experience and satisfaction levels the bot was providing.
“What about the customer experience?” they said.
“I have never been happy getting served from a chatbot, I have seen it on too many sites, never was my query fully resolved.”
Another predicted the move would be a huge mistake for the company.
“I’m calling it now. This is an AI mistake. Avoid doing it this way at all costs. It’s not worth the trade,” they said.
“This won’t end well.”
