Today, I had to book a ticket for by uncle and this was the first time I used redbus.in and I am pretty impressed with the service. I gave all my details including the credit card information and clicked on final confirmation and I get a error screen saying that there is a technical glitch. And I was like another failed attempt in my online booking (after the ever famous irctc). But the error screen gave me a “Case Number” and requested me to contact the customer support. I immediately dialed the number and bang…the rep picks up in first ring. He asks for my details and says there is a problem with the “Travels” side; he would check and call me back. In 5 mins he calls me and says the “Travels” side problem will get solved in 10 mins, he will do the booking for me and call me back. Meanwhile I got busy with my work and he calls me in the next 10 minutes. He says he has done the booking for me and I would be receiving my ticket in email. I refreshed my email account and the ticket was there.
OK, may be whatever said above is expected out of any paid service. But me being part of a startup and getting a product done from scratch, I could really appreciate the amount of effort and thought those guys have put in.
1. The user interface was pretty simple. Max three screens till I reached my final screen (even if its an error screen :))
2. I did my booking without creating an account with redbus. Whenever I clicked continue in the first two screens, I was expecting the login / signup screen to be presented. But was surprised that the booking went through without that. Because I don’t like the idea of signing up at so many places and remembering different login and passwords.
3. When there was an error, I immediately got an email saying “We took money out of your card but we couldn’t book the ticket. But hey, here is the cash coupon for same amount. Use this to do your booking in future”.
4. And wow, I never had an experience with a customer care which actually called me back. And they did the booking by themselves and also updated me on the same.
5. They have tied up with so many travels in India and it certainly is not an easy task.
6. The CEO of that company is of 27-28 years of age. I met him at a start up meet in Bangalore.
So on a whole it was a wonderful experience for me and I could really appreciate it from both a customer and developer point of view. And I can try out these in my company š
Raghu's Ramblings 