Overview

A customer places an order on Instamart and expects it at their doorstep in just 9 minutes. Behind that promise, a dark store is a hive of activity: orders coming in, pickers racing to find products, packers getting orders ready, and delivery partners waiting to move.

Every minute counts. And when a dark store doesn't have enough Store Executives, the pressure builds across the operation.

Instamart needed to hire Store Executives across its Bengaluru dark stores while processing large volumes of leads from digital campaigns and job portals. But reaching candidates, checking their interest, qualifying them and scheduling interviews manually made it difficult to move fast enough.

With Hunar.AI, Instamart digitised its first-mile hiring process using Conversational AI, WhatsApp and human support where needed. Candidate leads could be engaged, qualified and moved towards interview readiness within a 24-hour window.

The challenge

For dark stores, workforce availability is critical to keeping daily operations running smoothly. Instamart needed a faster way to turn incoming candidate leads into interview-ready applicants, without making every step dependent on manual follow-ups.

1. High volumes of leads needed immediate attention

Digital campaigns and job portals generated candidate leads, but every lead needed to be contacted and moved to the next stage. Handling this volume manually put pressure on the hiring process.

2. Interested candidates could drop off before being reached

A candidate's interest can fade quickly. When outreach depends on telecallers working through a queue, delays can mean losing people before their suitability or availability is established.

3. Screening every candidate manually slowed the funnel

The team needed to identify candidates who were genuinely interested and suitable for Store Executive roles. Doing this through individual calls made it harder to process leads at scale.

4. Interview coordination required continued follow-up

Even after candidates expressed interest, they needed guidance on preferred locations and the next steps. Interview confirmations and reminders added another layer of coordination before candidates were ready to attend.

The solution

Hunar.AI digitised Instamart's dark store hiring workflow, combining automated outreach and qualification with support from Instamart's telecalling team.

1. Bringing candidate leads directly into the hiring workflow

Leads from digital campaigns and job portals flow directly into Hunar.AI, reducing the delay between a candidate expressing interest and the hiring process beginning.

2. Checking interest through Voice and WhatsApp

Conversational AI engages candidates through voice calls and WhatsApp to check their interest in the role. This helps the team connect with candidates and identify those who want to move forward.

3. Qualifying interested candidates

The AI-led workflow qualifies candidates before they progress further in the hiring funnel, helping the team focus on candidates who have expressed interest and meet the relevant criteria.

4. Combining Conversational AI outreach with human support

Instamart telecallers step in where needed to confirm candidates' preferred locations and guide them through the interview process. Conversational AI handles scalable engagement while the human team supports candidates who need additional assistance.

5. Keeping candidates moving towards interviews

WhatsApp interview confirmations, reminders and voice follow-up calls help candidates understand the next steps and stay engaged through interview coordination.

The impact

The hiring funnel shows how Conversational AI helped Instamart engage candidates at scale and identify those ready to progress.

1. 98.8%  of all leads reached through Voice/WhatsApp interest checks

2. 90.7% of all leads candidates connected

3. More than half of all leads, 56.4% expressed interest in the opportunity. Among connected candidates, 62.1% were interested.

4. Of the interested candidates 60.1% of interested candidates, or 33.9% of the original lead pool were AI-qualified.

What changed for Instamart's hiring team?

Before Hunar.AI

Candidate leads → Manual outreach → Interest checks → Screening → Location confirmation → Interview coordination → Repeated follow-ups

Each stage required time and coordination from the hiring team. As lead volumes increased, manually moving candidates through the funnel made speed and consistency harder to maintain.

With Hunar.AI

Candidate leads → Automated Voice/WhatsApp outreach → Voice AI-led interest checks and qualification → Human support where needed → Automated confirmations and reminders → Interview readiness

The workflow helps engage leads at scale, identify interested and qualified candidates, and coordinate the next steps through a combination of Conversational AI and the Instamart team.

The outcome

A fast delivery promise depends on much more than the app and the rider. It depends on the people inside each dark store, picking and packing orders against the clock.

By digitising the first mile of hiring, Instamart and Hunar.AI created a more streamlined way to engage candidate leads, check interest and qualify potential Store Executives. The workflow gives the hiring team a clearer pipeline to work with while supporting a 24-hour journey from candidate interest to interview readiness.

The shift: from manually chasing candidates leads to using Conversational AI to keep dark store hiring moving at the speed the business demands.