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Zomato closes Hyderabad support centre, affecting about 240 employees
Our read
Zomato's Hyderabad closure is likely the first visible step in a broader shift from fixed in-house support toward centralized, vendor-run, AI-assisted operations, improving costs but creating a near-term customer-experience execution risk.
For operators
Zomato’s Hyderabad support-centre closure accelerates a shift to vendor-led and AI-enabled service, making transition quality and customer-experience continuity the key execution risks.
Watch
Customer complaint volumes, app-store ratings, social-media escalation rates, and refund-related sentiment after the transition.
The report,
Zomato shut its Hyderabad customer support centre, affecting about 240 employees, as it consolidates remaining in-house support in Gurugram and shifts work to specialised vendors and AI-led automation.
Newer report , , NDTV Profit : Zomato adds pay-on-delivery fee for cash food orders
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Reported figures
From the report. Source details below
| Benefits continue until March 31, | 2027 |
|---|---|
| Close to 600 support associates laid off in April | 2025 |
Also in the report
- Four months' pay plus August salary
- Around 1,500 people hired under ZAAP
- Nugget handled around 15 million monthly interactions
- Nugget resolved up to 80% of customer queries
Why it matters to operators
The move signals rising strategic value in customer-service automation and specialist BPO partnerships, potentially creating partnership or acquisition opportunities around scalable AI support capabilities.
What to watch next
- Changes in Zomato's disclosed employee costs, adjusted EBITDA margins, and outsourced-service expenses.
- Vendor hiring activity, BPO contract announcements, and job postings for AI operations or customer-support quality roles.
- Any increase in regulator, consumer-protection, or labor scrutiny related to automation, layoffs, or grievance handling.
- Evidence of similar consolidation across Blinkit, restaurant support, trust-and-safety, or corporate operations.
Likely next moves
Our read of what comes next — analysis, not reported by the source.
- Expand contracts with customer-experience BPO vendors and define service-level agreements for refunds, delivery failures, and high-value users.
- Deploy AI agents more broadly for order-status, cancellation, payment, and first-level complaint workflows while retaining human escalation teams.
- Centralize support analytics, quality assurance, and policy governance in Gurugram.
- Use severance and extended benefits to limit employee-relations fallout and reduce reputational risk.
- Track whether support savings are redirected toward quick-commerce expansion, delivery-partner incentives, or profitability targets.
The counter-case
The case against this reading — not reported by the source.
The closure may signal that Zomato is prioritizing cost reduction over service quality at a time when food-delivery competition and customer expectations remain high. Moving support to vendors and AI can create slower, less empathetic resolution for complex refunds, safety issues and order disputes, potentially raising churn, complaints and regulatory scrutiny. Severance and transition costs may also dilute near-term savings, while vendor dependence could reduce control over customer experience.