Food delivery platform, Zomato has laid off around 600 customer support executive employees who were hired under its Zomato Associate Accelerator Programme (ZAAP). Sources said that this has been done as the company is increasingly integrating artificial intelligence into its customer service operations.
ZAAP, launched last year, was designed to train employees to enhance customer service. Freshers were primarily hired for the programme, with an average annual salary of approximately Rs 4.5 lakh. Employees were based in Zomato’s Gurugram and Hyderabad offices and were required to work from these locations.
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“About 1,500-1,600 people were recruited for ZAAP from various campuses across the country,” said a source. Hiring continued until as recently as four months ago, as the company aggressively expanded its customer service team. “The company was growing fast and needed more people in customer service,” another source added.
“The company conducted a performance review and dismissed employees accordingly,” sources said.
When contacted, Zomato did not comment on the matter.
The layoffs coincide with Zomato’s rebranding efforts and its push toward AI-driven customer support. The company recently introduced its AI-powered customer service tool, Nugget, which has now been made available to other businesses. Sources said that Nugget played a role in assessing ZAAP employees’ performance.
Zomato claims Nugget can independently resolve around 80% of customer queries, significantly reducing the need for human intervention in customer service. As a result, further layoffs within ZAAP are expected, with the workforce likely to shrink to around 400-500 employees in the coming weeks.
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The restructuring comes at a time when Zomato is facing intense competition from Swiggy in the food delivery space and from Blinkit’s rivals, Instamart and Zepto, in the quick commerce sector. The company has been investing heavily in expanding its dark store network and improving delivery speeds, leading to rising operational costs.
With competition expected to remain fierce for at least the next year, Zomato is likely to continue optimising its workforce and operations to maintain profitability and market position.
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