Jio-owned Haptik now facilitates food delivery in trains

Train travellers can now place food delivery orders on WhatsApp and get food delivered to their seats. Jio Platforms owned Haptik has tied up with Zoop India to facilitate railway passengers with food ordering and delivery on train journeys.

Launched a month back, the service is active in 250 cities across various intercity train routes in the country.

Haptik helps brands acquire, convert, and engage users with AI-driven, personalised, conversational experiences across 20 channels and 100+ languages. Zoop India offers food ordering in train services and is approved by Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) as national food aggregator under the e-catering project.

Powered by Haptik’s conversational commerce capabilities, the WhatsApp-based self-service food delivery platform allows passengers to place food orders and get their deliveries straight to their seats with real-time order tracking, feedback, and support. Travelers can simply use their PNR numbers to order food at selected restaurants at planned train stops.

“WhatsApp is the preferred mode of communication now. So we thought instead of having to download yet another app, if passengers can ping a number on WhatsApp and place an order, it would make things faster,” said Aakrit Vaish, co-founder and chief executive, Haptik.

Puneet Sharma, founder, Zoopindia.com , said, “The problem of lack of access to quality food in trains is something we wanted to resolve. The WhatsApp chatbot solution, powered by Haptik, is one of the most sophisticated. It is an ideal self-service solution for all railway passengers. We’re excited to see how people respond to this innovation.

Vaish added that the service has processed 20, 000 orders since its launch on WhatsApp. “Right now, travellers need to place the order a day in advance, but we are working on real time ordering as well,” he said. (Real time ordering may still entail having to order an hour or so in advance, depending on the route, destination, and order.)

The feature allows digital payments across services like UPI, netbanking etc. Since WhatsApp Payments is not yet enabled for businesses, the payment interface is outside the WhatsApp ecosystem.

The WhatsApp solutions unit for Haptik drives 40% of the firm’s total revenues currently, and Vaish expects it to sustain the momentum in the future given the fast adoption of WhatsApp as a communication platform by users and businesses.

The firm is expanding its use cases with WhatsApp as an interface. It is currently working with retailers and hospitals to enable end to end buying and consultation/appointment setting respectively.

Haptik recently expanded to 4 countries in Southeast Asia - Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines where it is seeing similar traction for WhatsApp led AI and conversational commerce solutions.

“Middle East and Africa also show similar trends when it comes to WhatsApp solutions,” Vaish added.