Stitches off foot after hurried trip to the hospital. Bags packed and waiting all morning for the flight ticket to be confirmed. I had bid online through India Times three days ago – choosing online reservation for the convenience of not having to move anywhere out of my chair…
Three and a half days, eighteen phone calls to the Air Sahara help line – please wait for another 12 hours, and I have placed your name on record, madam, equal number of calls to India Times in Gurgaon – your call is being forwarded to a voice mail. bleep, 3 emails to the airline and the site and no response. And this morning, a curt response from the airline – but there is no booking in your name. On the India Times site, there is a booking order, and a booking confirmation with the message PNR not yet generated. And the airline throwing its hands up – there are no tickets available for tomorrow…
So here I am, with my travel postponed… at a time when I must be with my family, want to be with my fmily…
And seething at the fact that no one has accepted responsibility for this – the airline directs me to the auction site, which safely does not respond to customer calls, either over the phone or email.
Yes, I know about the free market and all that, but give me Indian Airlines any day. Atleast I have no expectations of service from them…
Does anyone know where and to whom I can complain about this… After all this, I was forced to go out today and walk into an ATM to pick up money and then book a later flight through my travel agent…
I was reading Dilip’s blog and came across back to the future… MTNL, Indian Airlines, whatever. Which is not to say that Indian Airlines rocks, but that private airlines and cheap fare providers don’t either…
Free markets are not free?
Well let’s put it this way, the Indian organizations embraced a lot of ‘customer service’ issues, without having the backend to back it up…
Let’s face it, the talent needed to execute the customer service needed is very small and the more organizations who enter, the thinner it gets.
The better talent service US/UK organizations and get paid more. The no-so-great talent service our bharatiya customers.
The key is the service mindset, that is still mired in the past …because the leadership talent of all these ‘new companies’ have come from the debris of the past…
As the sad joke goes, customer woh hota hai jisko “kasht -ke liye- mer jaata hai”
OUCH! & (((hug)))
Gautam, jsut saw your post – will read it fully and respond there. but yes, agree fully when you say that a lot of companies adopted the “new market” paradigm (ouch, I hate that word) without having the back end support to deliver their promises… telecom and air travel are the first sectors that come to my mind…
Shankari, thanks 🙂 (for the hug)