Popular food delivery company Zomato has recently made a comment on Twitter that is being construed as a hint on upcoming layoffs at the company. Zomato Care, the official support page of the restaurant aggregator on Twitter, was replying to a user’s remark on job security as a Zomato delivery person when the ominous-seeming comment was made.
This interesting exchange took place under a Twitter post that was detailing the current layoffs taking place at Goldman Sachs. It was reported that employees at Sachs’ India office were being laid off and asked to leave immediately without even being allowed to go back to their desk. In fact, Goldman Sachs is currently laying off scores of people across verticals in India with over 700 employees said to be affected.
In reply to the original post, a user made a tongue-in-cheek reply that since they are only a ‘zomato delivery boy’, the layoffs at Goldman Sachs do not concern them (mujhe kya, main toh zomato delivery boy hoon). This is where Zomato’s support page entered the conversation.
Perhaps, misreading the user’s comment to be a concern expressed by a delivery person, Zomato Care replied the issue is being looked into, and that the concerned person will be contacted immediately. It is very likely that Zomato Care’s response was automated and powered by AI chat technology.
However, it does give the impression that Zomato is working on the issue of ‘layoffs’ and that the company will make the required announcement soon. In response to Zomato Care’s comment, a user asked if Zomato is working on layoffs.
Although this is probably an odd case of mistaken reply, this sheds light on the perils of having a customer care page handled by non-human agents. After all, automated text responses are a pale shadow of the service that can be extended an empathetic, human customer care executive.
