Online retail puts a premium on human customer support

Human help is being recast as a paid perk. But automation over empathy is irking consumers

- Sakshi Sadashiv

India's booming online retailer sector is quietly redefining customer support: AI chatbots are becoming the default front-line to tackle complaints, and human help is being recast as a premium, paid perk.

But prioritizing automation over empathy is leaving many consumers miffed.

Flipkart's Black, Swiggy's One BLCK and Zomato's VIP Mode-either requiring subscriptions or additional payments-promise priority support and direct access to human agents. For other users, chatbots are the only way to raise concerns, and users say getting through to consumer service executives is becoming increasingly difficult.

"This happens because people assume that AI's marginal costs (e.g., per-query inference in GenAI) make it economical for volume, but human agents excel at empathy and complexity," said Abhivardhan, president, Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law, an industry forum. "Companies try to capture "willingness to pay" for humans, turning support from a cost center into revenue."