This post by Guest Author on TheBizofCoding : Monica Jasuja . Monica continues from her previous post Indian Online Travel Services Industry - Promises Unmet?
I wonder if any analysis is ever complete without pointing out a clear winner and one that I would watch out for in the near future to give MakeMyTrip a run for every paisa. A very detailed comparison on the same can be found here which throws up a rather unheard of winner: IXIGO.
Some of my grievances that I listed in my post in Part 1 seem to have been addressed in and what's remarkable is that the speed is something to die for. My experience on the site was a simplified and a non-frill shopping event where I got only what I was looking for with no packages with beautiful pics to distract me. However, IF I had to find one, just one differentiator that would strengthen the comparisons findings and help me pick my winner from amongst the almost half dozen similar offering, then it would be:- the visibility, use and messaging of the customer service numbers on the website. Let me explain the criterion for my choice a bit
Take any successful e-commerce website (best example would be
Amazon) and tell me if finding a phone number to contact customer service on is simple! Most users are dissuaded from making contacts with customer service agents due
to the high cost involved. Cost-cutting has led to a casualty that is almost never debated (atleast not in
India) and this is the death of customer service- which is personal, in real time i.e. a phone call away and where turn-around times are normally only a few minutes.
