Akosha re-brands to Helpchat, to hire over 500 this year

Online complaints redressal company Akosha, which has re-branded itself as HelpChat, today said it will almost double its headcount to 1,200 people in the next six months.
The Bangalore-based company, which currently has about 650 people, is looking at aggressively expanding its teams of brand experts and SMB outreach.
"We started as a complaint platform, but as more people started using our service, the nature of queries changed and we realised that people were seeking all kinds of help. Today, we are launching a messenger-based personal assistant platform 'Helpchat' that will help people get things done," HelpChat founder and CEO Ankur Singla told PTI.

The app will be free for the end user and they can get information across 18 categories.
Citing example from telecom sector, Singla said queries range from how to move from 2G to 3G services to which is the best SMS pack from a particular operator.
"Chat is more effective as they don't incur call charges and its also not as strenuous," he said.

HelpChat is expanding its team rapidly to cater to the strong growth that the company is witnessing, he said.
"We currently have about 350 chat/brand experts. This number alone will go to 750 in the coming 3-4 months. We are looking at bringing in work from home for moms who left the workforce for family reasons," he added.

Singla said the firm will also take its SMB outreach team to 100 people from the current 20 people.
"SMBs will play an important role for us. As more SMBs come online, they will look at connecting to customers and chat is a very effective way to do so," he added.
HelpChat has brands like Aircel, Voltas, Eureka Forbes, MakeMyTrip, Bookmyshow, Oyo Rooms, HDFC Life and Spice Mobiles as its customers.
The company is also expanding its team that works on natural language processor (NLP) and machine learning that will help it improve automation of its response systems.
"We are using NLP/artificial intelligence to automate the answering of queries. Currently, more than 25 per cent of the 30,000 daily requests are handled by a chatbot," he said.

Run by Coraza Technologies, HelpChat competes with Haptik, LookUp and Yellow Messenger and helps brands communicate with customers through a messenger.
Besides the app, HelpChat also has a B2B software platform called OneDirect.
It has raised about Rs 132 crore in funding till now and counts Sequoia Capital among its investors.
HelpChat will also launch a marketing campaign, spending about Rs 50 crore, over the next few months as it looks to improve brand awareness.