Customer service is one of the major concerns of the Indian customer. We often face the problem of waiting on a call to speak to the customer care executive in order to get our issue resolved. But, not anymore Haptik Inc. has come up with a service which will free you from all the hassles of customer service and will also resolve your problem within seconds.

The company has come up with a brilliant service called Haptik Messenger. This will answer all your queries. We had a talk with the makers of this excellent service; Aakrit Vaish , Co-Founder & CEO and Swapan Rajdev, Co-Founder & CTO. They discussed about the app and how it is shaping the future of customer service.

Q. Tell us something about the Haptik messenger?

Haptik is a smartphone app that enables users to chat with experts on support issues, FAQs, information, and anything else. Think WhatsApp – but instead for customer support. The app currently has support for 200 companies across 12 categories like telecom, banking, airlines, and more. The average response time is under 4 minutes.

These experts are direct employees of Haptik, and the knowledge they derive is from previous experience working with these companies, or through the public domain. We have aggregated more than 12,000 commonly asked questions and created answers for them, which the experts refer to when addressing queries.

Examples of things you can do with Haptik:

• Find the best mobile plan for you
• Change your DTH channels
• Web check in
• Book a test drive

Q. What was the idea behind launching the messenger service?

It’s 2014. The Internet has been around for over two decades but we still struggle to find support for services we use. So we said, “Enough of that pain.” You shouldn’t have to wait on the phone and listen to that painful call centre music, or sift through endless FAQs. It should be as easy as sending a message, and chatting directly with a real person. Like SMS. Or, given its 2014, like WhatsApp.

Q. How has been the response to this service?

The app launched on March 31, and in 5 months has processed >500,000 messages on the platform. It has been featured by Google in the “Get Things Done” category on the Google Play store alongside apps like Gmail and Dropbox. The app has broken into the Top 100 of the Lifestyle category of both the Google Play Store and iOS App Store. It now has collectively over 1,200 ratings with an average rating of 4.5/5. So, overall, extremely positive and exciting.

 

Q. Do you think that this service will work with the Indian audience?

India is a service obsessed country. Culturally, we are used to getting other people to help us, whether it be paid (domestic help, office boys, etc.) or for free (relatives). As a result, a service like this should fit quite well with people here. And that’s what we have even seen in the first few months of operation with the extremely positive response here. Now we just need to scale up quickly.

Q. How many companies have you partnered with for this service?

We have a unique business model where we don’t necessarily have to tie up with companies. By creating our own expert operations team, we are not dependent on the companies, and can address consumer queries on our own. And can service as many companies as we like. Currently, we have 200+ companies listed on the platform.

Now, out of these, companies who want to come on our platform and directly handle chats have to pay a service fee, and that is our revenue model. Currently, we have 2 such companies who have partnered with us – Freecharge and India Property.

Q. What all categories are included in the service?

We have 12 categories which include Automobiles, Banking, Cable/DTH, Electronics & Appliances, Fast Food & Delivery, Health & Wellness, Insurance, Movies & Events, Real Estate, Shopping, Travel and Wireless & Telecom.  In addition, we have a chat handle called “Haptik”, where you can ask any support query that might not be related to one of the categories above.

Q. When will you be launching the service for Windows?

We will most likely have a Windows app by the end of this year.

Q. What are your future plans for the Indian market?

For the next 6-9 months, we are purely focused on building out the Indian market and getting as many users as possible to download and regularly use the app. We want Haptik to be the one stop shop for all your support needs!