Zomato executives protest as company claims efficiency

New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) As thousands of Zomato delivery executives in Bengaluru and Mumbai protested against the revised rate cards, the online food aggregator on Monday said that reduced average delivery time (less than 30 minutes) has enabled its delivery partners to perform more deliveries in the same amount of time.

In Bengaluru, the remuneration per delivery has been reduced to Rs 30 from Rs 40.

"Different metrics such as base pay, user satisfaction, delivery touchpoints and minimum guarantee etc. help us appreciate our delivery partners in accordance with their efforts," a Zomato spokesperson said in a statement.

"Reduced average delivery time and increased system efficiency have enabled our delivery partners to perform more deliveries in the same amount of time," the spokesperson added.

The food delivery platform on September 7 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 that has led to an overall reduction in direct order-related support queries, the company had said.

"We regret the inconvenience caused to our users and are continuously working to resume our services in the affected areas," said Zomato.

According to Zomato executives, their incentives have been reduced while the company has increased the travel distance to make them eligible to earn bonus points.

The company, which is at the loggerheads with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) over deep discounts in its fine-dining Gold programme, 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).