Haptik, an app to chat with companies for support, to launch on March 31, 2014

Update: The app has now launched. It can be downloaded here

The last few days have been full of discussions about the massive WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook. Is the amount justified? What are the repercussions? And a lot more! The acquisition has brought the whole messaging space to the forefront and alternatives like Telegram and Hike have also seen an uptake (not to mention WeChat, Line, Viber, etc). This brings us to Haptik, an app that'll help people communicate with businesses.

Aakrit Vaish, the founder of Haptik, was previously the Director of Flurry India and has had a keen eye on the messaging space for a good number of years. He tells us in detail about the story behind starting up and the company also went on to become one of the MobileSparks of 2013. Haptik already has 200+ companies on board for launch. The app is going to be focused on India with Indian companies on board.

“This is a completely indigenous product and the aim is to build the consumer side first,” says Aakrit. Haptik will be guaranteeing a response within one to four minutes since a user initiates a chat with the company. Haptik is not completely dependent on the companies to respond but has its own layer in between which helps expedite the process. “Eventually, we want to get the response time less than a minute,” says Aakrit.

The idea is simple but powerful. What if WhatsApp decides to come up with brand pages? “We've been asked this question multiple times. WhatsApp founders recently declared that 'No gimmicks, no ads'. They want to keep the product extremely simple. We don't believe they're entering the space and even if they do, there is a need for an app catering to this need. People don't want to see brands in between their groups of friends,” says Aakrit. Some of the messaging apps already have this feature but the recall is not strong. “People hardly know about it,” says Aakrit.

Haptik also recently launched Device Help, an app to get tech support for devices as a build up. Haptik has revamped its website and will be launching the app on March 31. Sign up here.

Haptik is a Mobile Sparks company, watch their pitch: