Recasting rakhi for equal ties
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Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
Companies shift to human and AI approach for customer service
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Online platforms have been rapidly automating customer service using artificial intelligence to cut costs. Customers often get a drop-down list of options that does not address their query. Often, the cause of the call is not covered in the options,Simply put, most customers miss the human conducted a survey to understand the issues customers face when engaging with chatbots. Most complained that it either took time to resolve their queries or their issues were left to the survey, about 60% of the respondents who use major ecommerce and quick commerce platforms said that they would prefer talking to humans over AI chatbots for their order queries. About 20% said they were okay with chat bots. Over 75% of the respondents rated their AI support experience 3 or less on a scale of to industry experts, poor customer service, especially in the quick delivery segment, could push users away.'Customer service in segments such as food is very critical because of the urgency and need for accuracy,' said Naman Lahoty, partner at venture capital fund Stellaris Venture Partners . 'In a lifestyle category, the urgency to resolve a query is not as much.''Chatbots have been around for a long time now but most of them are extremely robotic and customers miss the human touch,' said Gaurav Agrawal, chief business officer of Exotel, which provides AI services to platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho , quick commerce apps Instamart and Blinkit, and many new-age brands have all automated their customer support services for level 1 queries — usually on order details, status and frequently asked questions. For these brands, using bots at the first level is a practical approach, not just because it is cost-effective, but because of the sheer size of their user platforms that process millions of orders per day, it is pragmatic to automate repetitive customer service tasks to manage the volume of enquiries, especially during festive periods. Take ride-hailing platform Uber , for example. It handles millions of support requests annually across more than 15,000 cities and in over 50 languages.'If a platform's normal volume is 1,000 calls per day, during the Rakhi or Diwali season it could go up to 3,000 calls per day due to more orders,' explains Kopal Gupta, head of AI Labs & Velocity Pay at Velocity AI . 'Typically, companies will not hire people for just these phases, and customers could get a delay in response."According to industry experts, while automating customer service for repetitive questions or level 1 queries increases efficiency, human interaction is essential at level 2 and level 3 because of the complexity of the address this challenge, platforms and brands are increasingly experimenting with AI usage in their support system and hiring customer care executives who are AI India has been experimenting with AI-powered customer care to improve its service. 'I think we are starting to get a lot deeper into it,' said Samir Kumar, country manager for Amazon India, in a conversation with ET.'A chatbot is almost a commodity, right? But it's not about that. It's about whether we can use some of these tools to really make a difference for our customers because their interaction with AI has to be somewhat personal,' said Kumar. 'If customers have some challenges with service, I would rather have them talk to a person who can solve their problem.'Brands and platforms are slowly moving to generative AI chatbots trained on existing data on the platform as well as AI agents in vernacular languages to bring back the human element, according to Exotel's has been using technology to automate customer interactions for FAQs, fare adjustments, refunds and more and now it is using generative AI. "We are using Generative AI to further increase our coverage and improve conversational experiences to delight our customers," said Jayaram Valliyur, senior director of engineering, Velocity AI recently launched an AI-powered customer service platform called Vani AI. In just about three months from launch, over 80 direct-to-consumer brands have integrated Vani AI into their AI is an AI-enabled voice chatbot that can speak fluently in English, Hindi and other regional languages to help solve payment-related problems, OTP issues, return and exchange scheduling calls and more with the platform Meesho has a generative AI-powered voice bot that supports Hindi and English and distinguishes between casual affirmations such as 'yes', 'ji' and 'okay'. The bot had achieved 10% higher Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores, as of November for the human workforce in the segment has picked up in the past year while companies are focusing on making their AI chatbots better and adding AI the post-Covid world, between 2020 and 2021, job postings in the sector surged by 498%, and jobseeker interest rose by 1,400% as companies ramped up digital support, according to Bengaluru-based staffing company Quess Later, in 2022-2023, job postings in the customer care space fell 73.5% and candidate interest also dropped by 64.5% as offices started opening and repetitive work started getting automated in the in 2024-2025, hiring is picking up again, but with a shift in focus. 'India's BPO sector added 700,000 new jobs in the last year alone,' said Kapil Joshi, chief executive of IT hiring and staffing at Quess. 'We're seeing demand rise for digitally skilled customer support agents — those who can work alongside AI tools to manage complex, non-scripted queries.'Take Flipkart, for instance. While the platform is automating its customer care services, it is hiring for the segment with an AI focus.'Even as the customer experience landscape evolves, key competencies required in the customer support workforce are emotional intelligence and technical adaptiveness combined with learning agility,' said a Flipkart spokesperson, in response to ET's queries. 'Our focus is on developing adaptable talent that can rapidly respond to changing multi-modal needs of our customers and manage omnichannel support (voice/chat) seamlessly.'
Deccan Herald
2 days ago
- Deccan Herald
Recasting rakhi for equal ties
In most homes where Rakhi is conventionally celebrated, children—whether boys or girls—often grow up internalising deeply gendered constructions about the roles that men (brothers) and women (sisters) are expected to perform.
News18
2 days ago
- News18
He Was In Illicit Affair With ‘Chachi' Who Had 4-Yr-Old Girl. Yrs Later He Raped That Same ‘Baby' Cousin
Last Updated: Police say a 33-year-old man was arrested for killing his aunt's daughter on the same day she tied him a Rakhi. Raksha Bandhan is a festival that honours the bond between brothers and sisters, but an incident from Auraiya district in Uttar Pradesh has shocked many. Police say a 33-year-old man was arrested for killing his aunt's daughter on the same day she tied him a Rakhi. As per the investigation, after the celebration, the man, reportedly under the influence of alcohol, assaulted his nephew while she was asleep and later strangled her. Amar Ujala reports also revealed that the accused had also been involved with the victim's mother ten years earlier. Over the years, their strained relationship had created disputes between the two families. The family tried to separate the two, but neither agreed to change their behaviour. Almost eight years ago, the family decided to marry the accused to a woman from Etawah, which created more distance between him and his aunt. During the investigation, the man admitted this. He also told officers that his uncle suffers from a respiratory illness. Recalling events from 2015, when he was 23 years old, he said his aunt, who is the mother of the teenage girl, had once called him to her home for some work. During that time, the accused and his aunt began a physical relationship, which went on for two years. Due to his regular visits, family members started to suspect something and his uncle caught them together. The family tried to make them end the relationship, but they refused and in 2017, the man married another woman. After this, both families stopped speaking to each other about the matter. Meanwhile, the girl's father had filed a police complaint against him and five others. Bidhuna Kotwal Mukesh Babu Chauhan explained that the accused and the teenage girl were from the same community, which had only seven families living in their village. On the night of Raksha Bandhan, when the crime took place, the accused's wife was away in her parents' home in Etawah, along with their two children. During the postmortem, hairs were found in the teenager's nails and hands. Police have collected these samples to compare them with the 33-year-old man's hair. The samples have been sent to the forensic science lab in Jhansi for the DNA tests. Investigators are confident that this evidence will help ensure justice for the victim and they will will be able to punish the man soon. view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
