Retail Dude

Hi friends, there is a famous theory in retail that a customer shares his good experience with 10 customers whereas he shares is bad experience with 100 customers. By now you people must be aware that I love sharing my experience both good (Rathna Stores post) and bad (Big Bazar) on Retail Dude. Being a Retail Management professional as well as post-graduate, I can’t resist myself from writing whenever I experience extreme of customer service, be it good or bad, though max of time its bad

As the title of post suggest, it’s about me and my friend Pranshu’s’ (same guy who was victim in Big Bazaar’s case) experience with the famous makemytrip.com, which actually took our trip. We made one of the biggest mistakes by booking a ticket with makemytrip, rather than cleartrip, which we generally prefer. As we came into payment gateway of makemytrip, there was option for either credit card or net banking. We chose net banking and proceeded. It took us to our bank’s page where we made payment and after which it was directed back to makemytrip for booking information. This was the time when ‘java error’ occurred and we were not able to see booking details.

This is a very common thing which happens in online booking, I have faced it in cleartrip too. But in cleartrip, their customer care associates calls within four hours and get the thing done. Or else you can easily reach their customer care and get the thing done. But in makemytrip, this is like a big crime which you have committed. We called Bangalore office of makemytrip, which we got from their site. There the person who picked up suggested us that we should call on a toll free number which is only for Airtel users. So, again it was a big crime for us as both of us are not fan of SRK, and don’t use Airtel. So, she gave us a number of Gurgaon and asked us to call that number. It was a STD call for us but we had no other option. We called at that number almost 5 times, each time we were stuck in their IVR where a lady was speaking ‘Dear customer, all our executives’ are busy with other customers. Your call is important to us. Kindly hold the line.’ But though my call was important, it was getting disconnected after every 15 mins of hold. So, we wasted 1 hour and more than 100 bucks in it with absolutely no response. Therefore, we called back the Bangalore office. The gal their said that she can’t help us as it is not headquarter and hanged the line. I was amazed then why this number was displayed on site?? We called her back and asked if we can talk to someone senior in office. We thought that he must have some good solution. That lady connected us with a manger called Mr., Reddy and he was again a confused guy. He first said that the Guragaon number is a toll free, which was not actually. Then he said that all this happened as we used our debit card and bet banking, which is not properly well and so we should have used credit card. I was not able to understand that why they had that option on their site when it was not working at all??

Mean while we were able to catch hold of an Airtel mobile of a colleague and tried reaching their toll free number. We were connected once told all details and that guy was not able to help asked us to hold the line and finally hanged. By now we were completely frustrated, we decided to give a last attempt otherwise we will either go their office or will forget this booking and book with cleartrip. Luckily after 30 mins again a gal picked the call, we shouted a lot on her and explained. That gal said that her system is too slow, but she will help us by generating a booking number and we should hold the line. We refused to hold and requested to be online only. She took almost 45 mins to generate the booking number between which I was enjoying celebrations of some party in their call center too. Finally I got the booking number but I was said that confirmation of ticket will take 24 hrs. We are still waiting for the same.

I guess it’s high time and company like makemytrip should realize that they are in service sector and people intensive industry. So, they need to hire more as well as talented customer care executives and should render proper customer service. I still expect bad service from call center people but how people sitting in regional office can behave like this??

- Rajeev Damani

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