For Zomato, the latest round of restructuring is putting the spotlight on an often-overlooked part of food delivery: customer support. The company is shutting down its customer support centre in Hyderabad, affecting around 250 employees as it reorganises how customer queries are handled.
The move does not mean Zomato is abandoning in-house customer support altogether. Instead, the company is consolidating its internal support operations at its Gurugram headquarters while increasingly relying on external partners for customer service.
Credits: Business Today
Zomato Restructures Customer Support Operations
Employees at the Hyderabad centre were reportedly informed about the workforce reduction on August 31, following changes to Zomato’s customer support model over the past six months.
The restructuring is part of a broader effort to make the company’s operations leaner and more centralised. Zomato, which operates its food delivery business under Eternal, has been shifting a greater portion of customer-care work to third-party service providers.
Rather than simply eliminating customer support jobs, the company is changing where and how the function is managed. By concentrating its remaining in-house support operations in Gurugram, Zomato can bring customer service teams closer to product, technology, analytics and business teams.
That proximity could allow the company to respond more quickly to recurring customer complaints and use insights from support interactions to improve its products and services.
Around 250 Employees Set to Lose Their Jobs
The closure of the Hyderabad facility will nevertheless have a significant human impact. Around 250 employees are expected to lose their jobs as a result of the restructuring.
Zomato has reportedly offered an extensive separation package to affected employees. Workers will receive their August salary along with four months’ pay as severance. This amount includes contractual notice pay as well as a one-time ex gratia payment.
The company is also extending some benefits beyond the employees’ departure. Affected workers can reportedly continue using medical insurance and counselling support until March 31, 2027.
Zomato is also said to be providing assistance to employees looking for new employment opportunities, giving those affected some support while they transition to their next roles.
Why Is Zomato Outsourcing Customer Support?
The move comes as food delivery companies look for ways to handle enormous volumes of customer interactions without maintaining equally large internal teams.
Customer support has traditionally required thousands of employees to deal with issues involving delayed orders, missing items, refunds, cancellations, payments and delivery partners. But automation, artificial intelligence and third-party service providers are changing that equation.
Companies can increasingly automate straightforward requests while sending more complicated cases to specialised support teams. Outsourcing also allows businesses to scale customer service according to demand without carrying the full cost of a large permanent workforce.
For Zomato, the shift therefore appears to be about redesigning its support infrastructure rather than simply cutting jobs. Outsourcing routine customer-care work while retaining a central in-house team could give the company greater flexibility as its food delivery business evolves.
Hyderabad Closure Comes After Earlier Job Cuts
The latest restructuring also follows previous workforce reductions at Zomato.
The company laid off around 500 junior-level employees in April 2025 as part of an earlier restructuring exercise. The latest cuts indicate that the company continues to reassess its workforce and operating model even as its core food delivery business remains highly competitive.
India’s food delivery market has become increasingly focused on efficiency, with companies looking for ways to control costs while maintaining fast delivery and customer satisfaction.
That pressure makes functions such as customer support an obvious area for technological experimentation. If AI systems and external partners can handle a significant share of customer queries, companies can potentially operate with smaller internal teams.
Gurugram Becomes the Centre of Zomato’s Support Operations
With Hyderabad being removed from the company’s in-house support network, Gurugram will become even more important to Zomato’s customer service operations.
The consolidation brings support teams closer to the company’s product, technology, analytics and business functions. This could help create a tighter feedback loop between customers and the teams responsible for improving the platform.
At the same time, the increasing use of external partners means Zomato’s customer support model will likely become a combination of in-house teams, outsourced workers and automated systems.
Credits: OfficeChai
What Zomato’s Move Says About India’s Startup Economy
Zomato’s Hyderabad closure is part of a much larger shift taking place across the technology and startup industry.
As companies mature, the focus often moves from rapid expansion to efficiency and profitability. Functions that can be automated or outsourced are increasingly being redesigned, while companies concentrate their internal workforce on areas considered strategically important.
For employees, however, that transformation can come with significant uncertainty. A job that once required a large team of customer-service representatives can increasingly be handled by software and specialised external providers.
Zomato’s latest restructuring therefore represents more than the closure of one office. It highlights how India’s startup ecosystem is moving toward a leaner operating model—one where technology, outsourcing and centralisation are becoming increasingly important to how companies serve millions of customers.
