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Zomato to lay off 240 staff as it shuts Hyderabad customer-support operations
Our read
Zomato’s Hyderabad shutdown is likely the first visible step in a broader shift toward centralized, outsourced and automated support, improving costs but creating a meaningful execution risk around customer experience.
For operators
Zomato’s Hyderabad support closure and added outsourcing signal a leaner service model that will require tight partner oversight to protect customer experience.
Watch
Changes in customer-support response times, complaint volumes, refund rates and app-store ratings after the transition.
Ask next
What else has Zomato done in the last three months?The report,
Zomato is shutting its Hyderabad customer-support operation and laying off about 240 staff, consolidating remaining in-house support in Gurugram while shifting more work to external partners. Affected workers receive August salary, four months’ pay, extended insurance and outplacement support.
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Reported figures
From the report. Source details below
| Benefits continue until March 31, | 2027 |
|---|
Also in the report
- Around 250 employees cited in an earlier report
- Around 600 customer-support employees laid off in April last year
- 86 facilities inspected in Maharashtra
- 14 food-establishment licences suspended
- 60 improvement notices issued
Why it matters to operators
Zomato’s move underscores the strategic value of scalable outsourced-support capabilities and potential partnership opportunities with customer-service platform providers.
What to watch next
- Evidence of rising customer churn, lower order frequency or increased promotional spending relative to Swiggy.
- Management commentary on adjusted EBITDA, employee costs and outsourcing expenses in upcoming results.
- Further layoffs, office closures or hiring freezes in operations, technology or corporate functions.
- Vendor service-level failures, data-security incidents or public backlash from affected employees.
Likely next moves
Our read of what comes next — analysis, not reported by the source.
- Shift additional customer-support volumes to outsourced partners with tighter cost-per-contact targets.
- Expand AI-led self-service, chat automation and automated refund workflows to reduce human-agent demand.
- Concentrate retained escalation, fraud, merchant and high-value customer teams in Gurugram.
- Review other back-office locations and overlapping corporate roles for consolidation opportunities.
- Use severance and transition support to limit reputational fallout and labor-relations risk.
The counter-case
The case against this reading — not reported by the source.
The layoff is modest relative to Zomato’s overall workforce and may reflect routine support-function optimization rather than a deterioration in demand or unit economics. Outsourcing customer service can lower fixed costs, but it also risks weaker resolution quality, slower response times and reputational damage if third-party partners are poorly managed. Consolidating support in Gurugram may also create operational concentration risk.
The source
First seen