Zomato is planning to introduce its Gold programme across multiple cities on its delivery platform.
Food delivery platform Zomato on Saturday said that it has laid off 541 people -- 10 per cent of the company's strength -- across customer, merchant and delivery partner support teams.
The reason behind the move is an improved Zomato platform with Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven bots and automation in resolving customer queries which has led to an overall reduction in direct order-related support queries, the company said in a statement.
The company has extended 2-4 months of severance pay to employees laid off.
Here are 10 things to know about Zomato's lay off:"Over the last few months, we have seen our technology products and platforms evolve and improve significantly.
While the business has continued to grow consistently, this has led to an overall reduction in direct order-related support queries," Zomato said.The company claimed it has improved the speed of service resolution and now only 7.5 per cent of its orders need support, down from 15 per cent in March.Zomato said that these factors haveled to certain redundancies across theircustomer, merchant and delivery partner support teams.
"Today, we let go of 541 people across these support teams," it added."While this has been a painful decision, to make the transition smoother, we have extended between two-four months severance pay (based on tenure), family health insurance cover (till the end of January 2020) and career fair opportunities with companies that specialise in the concerned functions," said Zomato.The company said it hired over 1,200 people across functions (excluding its last-mile delivery fleet) and another over 400 off-rolls positions."We are currently hiring in our technology, product and data sciences teams," it added.The company is also planning to introduce its fine-dining Gold programme across multiple cities on its delivery platform.According to news agency Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), Zomato is at the loggerheads with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) over deep discounts in its Gold programmeLast month, NRAI saidthat there is an in-principle agreement between the association and the two major online delivery platforms, Zomato and Swiggy, to resolve the issues of the industry including deep discounts, the report added.However, Zomato is determined on carrying on with its plans to make its Gold programme now available for delivery.Get Breaking news, live coverage, and Latest News from India and around the world on TheIndianSubcontinent.com.
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