AI Helps Indian Ecommerce Firm Cut Customer Call Costs By 75% (techcrunch.com) 41
An anonymous reader shares a report: Softbank-backed online shopping site Meesho has rolled out what it claims is the first GenAI-powered voice bot among Indian e-commerce firms for customer support, paring down some expenses by 75%. Meesho has more than 160 million customers in India, with 80% of them in smaller cities, towns and villages.
[...] The Bengaluru-based e-commerce startup said Tuesday its AI bot currently handles 60,000 customer calls daily in English and Hindi. The startup, which also counts Elevation and Prosus among its backers, plans to add support for six more Indian languages.
[...] The Bengaluru-based e-commerce startup said Tuesday its AI bot currently handles 60,000 customer calls daily in English and Hindi. The startup, which also counts Elevation and Prosus among its backers, plans to add support for six more Indian languages.
Suck 4 Less (Score:2)
If it's as sucky as most customer support, then all it did is allow the company to suck for less. There's "move fast and break things", and now "suck for less".
Re: Suck 4 Less (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It does fit in nicely with one of the very few things LLMs can actually do: Generating better crap. So if regular customer support is already crap (and it likely is), using an LLM would actually improve things. They would still be crap though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Suck 4 Less (Score:2)
Wait, you mean it WASN'T AI before?
So what they did was couple text-to-voice and voice recognition software with their pre-existing "scripts" for customer support?
Re: (Score:1)
Instead of clueless humans reading scripts, they have clueless bots reading scripts. Progress!
Re: (Score:2)
If it's as sucky as most customer support, then all it did is allow the company to suck for less.
I worked for a tech company that prided itself on no voice menus at all. Every customer got a real live human. At the end, they put in a single robot menu. "Hello, you've reached the Acme Company Technical support line. Please hold 4 seconds while we get a human for you!"
The initial call volume dropped by 30% and staffing was reduced by 14%. They saved money because they had fewer calls but in the specific case of the article, I'm guessing that wrong numbers wasn't an issue with them that lead to their savi
Breakdown (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Cutting labor costs by 90% and increasing compute costs by 4000%
GenAI is expensive to train but not to run.
Re: (Score:1)
We are not ready for this. (Score:3, Insightful)
We are still very much a "if you don't work you don't eat" culture. The idea of running out of work is not something we're ready for but we are very quickly approaching it.
Go on YouTube. Look up some videos about how stuff's made. Anything just take your pick. Look at all that automation. That's 40 years of non-stop automation and yes it has had an impact. Do a bit of googling and you will find a study showing that 70% of the middle class jobs in this country were taken by robots instead of outsourcing or illegals.
We've been covering that up for years using cheap goods imported from China because they had borderline slave labor and they could care less about pouring carcinogenic chemicals into their water supply. Scientific advancements in food production helped too. But there's only so much that I can do especially with all the market consolidation going on.
We are entering into a Star Trek style Utopia phase when it comes to work but we still have all the baggage left over from thousands of years of extreme shortages and the need for everyone to be constantly working. Ironically Star Trek saw this coming years ago, Google "The Bell Riots". Only that's a science fiction show, when actual riots happen the people in charge just plain don't care.
On the plus side maybe we here on slashdot will all be dead and we can just leave this mess to our kids.
Re:We are not ready for this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Predictably, rsilvergun charges in with a hot take about how evil automobiles and electric streetlights are because they put most farriers and lamplighters out of work.
Re: (Score:2)
Predictably, rsilvergun charges in with a hot take about how evil automobiles and electric streetlights are because they put most farriers and lamplighters out of work.
It struck me as less of a "luddite's" argument and more of a "what are we going to do about the incoming high rates of unemployment" comment.
IMO our society does tend to be pretty good at finding things for people to do so that they can "work" and "earn" their "keep"; even if the things we find for them to do don't always make a lot of sense or actually improve society - as long as they're busy and no one is upset that someone else is getting a free ride!
Re: (Score:2)
"It struck me as less of a "luddite's" argument and more of a "what are we going to do about the incoming high rates of unemployment" comment."
Believing that there will be "incoming high rates of unemployment" *is* the Luddite argument. It's never worked that way before.
"It never worked that way before" (Score:2)
Did it ever cross you mind that things change?
Little things, like ultra cheap high performance microprocessors and machine learning/LLMs come to mind. e.g. entirely new tech.
But here's the fun part, It did work this way before. You just don't know it because you're not well read on history.
We had 2 industrial revolutions and both of them lead to widespread unemployment until wars and new tech got us back to something like full employment. There were d
Nice strawman (Score:2)
The problem isn't the automation. That's fine. Star Trek shit is good.
The problem is we're not ready to do Star Trek shit. Socially.
As tech nerds we don't like to think about social stuff. We like to pretend it doesn't exist and that science will fix everything like it does in those books we checked out from the library when we were in our teens.
It's not.
We need to be getting ready for a post work world. One where 30-50% of the populatio
Re: Nice strawman (Score:2)
The problem is we're not ready to do Star Trek shit. Socially.
Big technology shifts bring big societal change, not the other way around.
As tech nerds we don't like to think about social stuff.
Stop. You're not a "tech nerd". You never were. Any time you ever try to explain anything technical, not only do you get it incredibly wrong Every. Single. Time. You also don't ever come here to talk about anything technical, it's always you babbling about useless political shit. You're nothing but a propagandist.
We like to pretend it doesn't exist and that science will fix everything like it does in those books we checked out from the library when we were in our teens.
It's not.
It's not what? Science doesn't set out to "fix" things, it sets out to make discoveries. Engineers solve problems based on
Re: We are not ready for this. (Score:2)
We are still very much a "if you don't work you don't eat" culture. The idea of running out of work is not something we're ready for but we are very quickly approaching it.
Why work if your food, health, housing, transportation, communications, and entertainment are provided by government? (The obvious alternative to the current "work to eat" model...)
Re: We are not ready for this. (Score:2)
Harry Reid, a powerful former U.S. Senator once said "we can't cut government programs because each cut results in people losing their jobs"
I don't miss him one little bit...
Re: (Score:1)
We are entering into a Star Trek style Utopia phase
What if we're already passed it? There was a period when consumer goods were pretty cheap due to mechanization, now prices are rising and births are dropping due to debt from the unproductive economy. Next stop: Borg dystopia.
Re: (Score:2)
That's 75% savings is hands down a 75% reduction in staff.
The call center at $EMPLOYER hires phone chimps for $11.00 an hour. For a tier II it's $24 an hour. For a Tier III, it's 29-ish. Not sure what a IV or V makes. For someone like me (gets out the calculator), assuming a 40 hour work week (more like 70), It is about $MORE-THAN-TRIPLE an hour.
One usually can't assume a flat line cost on human resources.
Now show the numbers... (Score:2, Informative)
I have a cheaper solution (Score:2)
A phone system that hangs up on everyone would cost even less.
Re:I have a cheaper solution (Score:4, Interesting)
A phone system that hangs up on everyone would cost even less.
Phone tech support performance is measured by average call length. Shorter the better. So to game the numbers, the tech support drone just hangs up on every third or fourth call. If you've ever wondered why you sit on hold for a half hour and then get hung up on, that's why. Bad managers.
I worked dial-up internet tech support for a summer. Worst job I've ever had. AI can have it.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed.
Re: (Score:1)
"Your call is very important to us! Please enjoy 3 hours of elevator music..."
It's possible to imagine... (Score:3)
...a future AI that provides perfect tech support. It would have access to a library of all technical documentation, the bug database and all service history and would give the best answers possible.
Unfortunately, today's AI will spew nonsense scripts while hallucinating
The tsunami of crap continues
Re:It's possible to imagine... (Score:5, Informative)
...a future AI that provides perfect tech support. It would have access to a library of all technical documentation, the bug database and all service history and would give the best answers possible.
Unfortunately, today's AI will spew nonsense scripts while hallucinating
The tsunami of crap continues
Considering that most support now is humans spewing nonsense scripts no matter what the person on the other end is saying? I understand why companies would be scrambling to replace the humans with AI. There's no point in having a human involved if decision making and troubleshooting are no longer a goal. And based on most support calls I've been stuck on? Neither rank as a viable path. It's, "Read the script. No matter what." If you're lucky, you dead-end them and they need to escalate. It'll be the same with the AI agents. What I'm really looking forward to is the day they escalate to a different AI agent, that's just as inane as the first level, but twice as adamant about following the script.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering that most support now is humans spewing nonsense scripts no matter what the person on the other end is saying?
The purpose of first-line call center workers is to screen out the 90% of the callers who only need simple answers or straightforward solutions. These workers don't know much, don't need much training, aren't allowed to do too much, aren't paid much, and are easily replaceable. The second-line escalation folks are the ones that know more and cost more, so their time is valuable. All touch-tone, AI, or other automated systems need to do is to screen out those callers with simple requests. That's a low ba
Re: (Score:3)
Considering that most support now is humans spewing nonsense scripts no matter what the person on the other end is saying?
The purpose of first-line call center workers is to screen out the 90% of the callers who only need simple answers or straightforward solutions. These workers don't know much, don't need much training, aren't allowed to do too much, aren't paid much, and are easily replaceable. The second-line escalation folks are the ones that know more and cost more, so their time is valuable. All touch-tone, AI, or other automated systems need to do is to screen out those callers with simple requests. That's a low bar.
And woe be to those of us who know basic troubleshooting and need actual help. Because we all have to jump the correct hurdles to get that help, and there's no secret square to land on that guarantee that help.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Considering that most support now is humans spewing nonsense scripts no matter what the person on the other end is saying?
Yup and that's infuriating. Every year at the same period I have a connection problem. I once managed to talk with an engineer who explained exactly what the problem was and its solution (on their end), and promptly solved it. But in recent years, no matter how I explain, I get the roundabout, cannot speak to a higher up and cannot get the problem solved. Lsat time I insisted so much I got transfered to *real* tech support; the communication cut off just after saying hello. I don't see how AI is going to ei
Cutting costs by losing customers? (Score:4, Informative)
I know some companies operate cynically like that. However, it's gross and has made me avoid certain companies. We all hate dealing with AI chatbots. How about instead of investing all this money in killing jobs for customer support, you use this AI to write better documentation or produce products with less errors. In a better world, I'd contact your company and fix minor issues rather than just returning your product on Amazon...at great environmental cost...but you make it hard for me to self-service...I'm not going to eat the cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Some companies? *Every* large company in the US. Name me one that does not have an annoying useless IVR.
Re: (Score:2)
The customers probably were not any more satisfied before, I imagine...
Monopolies & dirty pool biz practices (Score:2)
Relax, It'll Be Fine (Score:2)
I work in the call center industry, and have a front-row seat to the automation going on. Yes, lots of folks are working hard to glue in little 'bots' all over the place. This does chip away at some small amount of jobs, but each bot seems to make the caller's experience just a little worse, for the same reason that self-checkout sucks for some people: they don't like doing their own data entry.
The only thing that will truly replace a call center agent is an end-to-end AI, similar to how Tesla moved from
I would rather talk to AI. (Score:2)
I'd rather speak to an English-accent AI than an Indian call centre rep. I'm sorry. Nothing personal - all functional. I simply cannot understand what Indian people are saying at all. Accent, tempo, pronunciation, rhythm - they all matter.
handles 60,000 customer calls daily (Score:2)