Companies shift to human and AI approach for customer service
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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 touch.ETtech 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 unresolved.According 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 5.According 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 companies.Ecommerce 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 base.For 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 queries.To address this challenge, platforms and brands are increasingly experimenting with AI usage in their support system and hiring customer care executives who are AI savvy.Amazon 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 Agarwal.Uber 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, Uber.Bengaluru-based 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 platforms.Vani 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 customers.Ecommerce 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 2024.Hiring 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 Agents.In 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 segment.However, 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.'
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