NEW DELHI: Call centre customer support hiring is set to be the next big thing in the coming quarters for startups and ecommerce companies. Companies like Snapdeal and Ola are betting big on their customer support divisions and are looking to hire aggressively. While Ola is planning to hire 1,000 people for customer operations in the coming quarter, Snapdeal appointed a new customer service head last month after their customer staff strength doubled in the past six to seven months. “After frontline delivery staff, the maximum jobs are being generated in customer support,” says Rishi Das, CEO of recruitment firm HiRePro, which works extensively for ecommerce startups. Gurgaon-based Zomato, which did not have a business to customer support team till date, has also begun hiring customer support staff as their online ordering feature went live last month. “Zomato will act as a facilitating platform allowing users to discover restaurants, see food menus, select dishes and order meals for delivery online… We need to make sure we have the right team in place to execute this feature,” says a spokesperson. “With ecommerce companies, such profiles, which are referred to in other industries as ‘captive back office operations, are in demand,” says HiRePro’s Das. Owing to varied customers these companies need staff that can communicate not just in English but vernacular languages too, he adds. Ola, which has 2,000 employees working in its customer service, customer care and driver support departments across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, is planning to hire an additional 1,000 executives in the next quarter for its various business needs. “Our salaries in these functions are very competitive along with attractive performance incentive schemes,” says Yugantar Saikia, VP, HR at Ola. Snapdeal appointed Dharmarajan K as its head, customer service to steer customer service operations last month. Dharmarajan, who comes with over 15 years of experience in senior leadership roles across companies like ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel and was head of customer service operations at Flipkart prior to Snapdeal, will be responsible for furthering the company’s efforts towards building better customer service operations. “There has been a massive uptick in business volumes and that has impacted our hiring in call centres and customer support. Over the past six to seven months, our customer support team has doubled to 1,500 from around 750. We are planning to hire another 500 people in the next three to four months,” says Saurabh Nigam, VP, HR at Snapdeal.