Voice AI for Ecommerce and Marketplaces

The scale problem in Indian ecommerce support

A mid sized Indian marketplace handles anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 customer support interactions per month. The largest marketplaces deal with tens of millions. Almost all of that happens in 6 to 12 Indian languages simultaneously.

BPO costs have risen 40 to 60% over the last five years. Agent attrition runs 80 to 120% annually. Training 5,000 agents on a changing product catalog is almost impossible. Quality is inconsistent.

WISMO: the highest volume, most automatable call

WISMO stands for Where Is My Order. It is the number one inbound query type for Indian ecommerce. A typical WISMO call takes 3 to 5 minutes with a human agent. ARCA handles it in under 90 seconds: authenticate via phone number, pull real time order status, deliver tracking update, handle follow up questions, escalate only for actionable complaints.

For a marketplace doing 100,000 WISMO calls per month, that is 30 to 50 full time agents just handling order status. ARCA replaces this entirely while actually improving customer satisfaction because answers come in seconds, not after a hold queue.

COD confirmation and RTO reduction

Cash on Delivery still accounts for a meaningful share of Indian ecommerce orders, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. COD orders have a huge Return to Origin problem: the customer does not pay, the delivery fails, the package comes back.

ARCA makes automated confirmation calls 12 to 24 hours before delivery, confirming the customer still wants the order, will be available, and has cash ready. Marketplaces using ARCA for COD confirmation report RTO reductions of 15 to 30%. At marketplace economics, this is tens of crores in annual savings.

Seller onboarding and operations

Every marketplace has a seller side. ARCA handles new seller onboarding walkthroughs, document verification follow ups, GSTIN validation calls, catalog guidance, reactivation calls for dormant sellers, and payout related queries. Sellers onboard faster, stay active longer, and have measurably better experience metrics.

Returns, refunds, and escalation

ARCA handles the mechanical parts of returns: authentication, return eligibility check, refund status, pickup scheduling, refund method selection. When a customer wants to escalate or the situation requires empathy, ARCA transfers to a human with full conversation context. No repetition needed.

The right architecture: ARCA handles 60 to 70% of total volume autonomously. 20 to 30% gets AI assisted human handling (ARCA gathers context, human resolves). 10 to 15% goes to pure human handling for complex escalations.

Language at marketplace scale

A marketplace operating across India deals with Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia, Assamese, and English. Hiring human agents for all these languages is practically impossible.

ARCA handles 22 Indian languages with code switching. A customer who speaks Marathi but uses English product names gets understood naturally. No language based routing delays. No asking the customer to repeat themselves.

Getting started

If you run a marketplace, D2C brand, or ecommerce platform in India, the workflow we recommend starting with is either WISMO or COD confirmation because those deliver provable ROI fastest.

At Tenori Labs, we run 2 week pilots on one high volume workflow with clear metrics. You see cost savings, resolution times, and customer satisfaction numbers before scaling.