Chronicles of a poor guy with IRCTC.CO.IN

*Originally appeared in my other blog readnshared.wordpress.com on 28 Sep 2009

I had a hell of a time booking tickets using IRCTC.co.in today morning and yesterday evening. What frustrated me was that poorly informed already frustrated 24 hr customer service department of IRCTC. You can get that message very well from the customer support guy as soon as he picks up your call and say “hello” in a very dull voice. Congratulations, your night mare has just started now.

It’s been a while I booked tickets using IRCTC – almost 1 year. I was in an urgency yesterday evening that I must book the ticket with in that evening; tickets were getting sold out quickly like Rajni’s opening show movie tickets. I must hurry up. But this IRCTC site is getting crashed once in a while. There is a new Ajax thing they have implemented in selection of station, you type the city name (slowly) and you can see an animation of moving circle with in the textbox meaning system is trying to pick up the stations that matches the letters you have just typed. Be quick and type fast and use tab to move to the next box – and there the site crashes and you have been kicked out just now. You must log in back again.

And I must tell something about the Payment Gateways. I have never used such poor payment gateways in my life. CITI PG or ICICI PG – both sucks. IRCTC must consider sacking them. Only AXIS PG works. Here I must say that I am not any ambassador for Axis bank and honestly I have no clue about the bank. So always use Axis PG. One of my friends sadly remarked that one must use ICICI PG continuously for 5 or 6 times – only then it works. Man, we are talking about e-business. This involves money, transaction and more than everything trust. How can IRCTC allow this unacceptable behavior?

Then there is one more thing: when you wanted to check any of your history of transactions you are asked for your password. Oh my, give me a break. IRCTC, I understand your commitment towards providing us utmost security. But believe me this is absurd. I am clicking now on a history menu. You are asking for password. OK. Alright. I am clicking on the same menu again immediately. Again you are asking for the same password. Don’t ask me why am I clicking the same menu again immediately. We are customers. Customers behave weirdly. There are lot of smart ways to implement security with out frustrating your customers. Even though you are a government company, customers are still customers right? Learn web usability. If not do this at-least (hallway usability testing).

Some one books a ticket for his entire family. His family includes 10 persons. This poor guy key in all the details of his family members and proceeds to buy the ticket. Now because of innumerous problems with the payment gateways there is 99.9% of chances for his purchase to fail. After few minutes of staring at screens getting refreshed back and forth this poor guy sees a screen that says his transaction is incomplete because of

a. his choice of berth is not available

b. there is not enough money in his account

c. card expiry date is wrong

and the list goes on.

Choice of berth?! Lower, Upper or Middle? Honestly don’t you guys have a way to validate it and fix it before proceeding for payment. Suppose that poor guy has asked for at-least 2 berths, don’t you have a way to find out if his choice of berth is available or not before proceeding for payment?

About not enough money and card expiry – we will come to it later very soon. I suggest IRCTC to add some more reasons for failed transaction like “tea boy will not be available for your coach” or “your choice of train is not available on your choice of date” or I leave it to your imagination guys.

For what ever reason this poor guys ticket booking has doomed. OK. Alright. For re-booking why he must select all the details again? Why don’t you keep the information saved and give it to him? Usability man, Usability.

Ok apparently there is a change in the way purchase through credit card (visa or master) happens in IRCTC. Now in order to provide more security to the customers IRCTC requires all VISA cards to be securely verified. Now what is “securely verified by VISA”? Google it guys. Ok they have put that message in the ticket booking page. Ok they have given in red and bold. I overlooked it. I apologize.

I have not registered by visa card for verification. And I proceeded for payment. Every thing goes on smoothly (screen refreshes automatically back and forth) until I see a message back in IRCTC saying transaction is not successful may be because

1) not enough money in your card

2) or invalid expiry date.

What the hell does a poor buyer (mind it IRCTC: your customer) deduce from this message? Obviously he knows that he has enough money in his card. So he thinks that problem is because he has mistakenly keyed in the expiry date of his card. This poor guy (ya, that’s me) again proceeds for payment – now carefully keying in his expiry date. Again the same stupid error message. Now this guy seriously thinks about his balance in his credit card. He calls his banker – Customer service.

Customer service guys, now I would like to give you a serious advice. When a customer gives you a problem, first try to hear the problem and try to understand the problem. And analyze the problem. And only then you can deduce a result or a solution. Don’t ever jump in to a solution. Head start is not good always.

This diners club customer service guy asked my personal details for verification and finally told me that “If you are seeing not enough money in your card then your card does not have enough money to complete the transaction” What an explanation? I have enough knowledge of English. I can very well understand this sentence. Does your company pays you to just repeat the same sentence I told you? Or did I call you at 11:30 PM in the night to just hear you repeat my problem? Guys think and analyze your customer’s problem. And think rationally please.

Obviously I had enough money in my card. Then what’s the problem? This poor guy does not know. He says he didn’t get transaction request from the merchant. So he asked me to enquire the merchant. Before this conversation I had already used Citibank card too. No luck.

I called the merchant: IRCTC customer service number. A guy picked up. Just from his hello you can very well say about his mood. He is clearly frustrated. May be because he is working when his friends are celebrating Vijaya Thasamy today. I honestly don’t have a clue. After listening to the problem apparently he gave a reply that “your bank doesn’t release money” What the hell? I patiently told him that I have already enquired with the bank and they are telling that they didn’t get any transaction request from the merchant that is you.

He didn’t try to investigate the problem and he utterly said this is not his problem (obviously) and told (almost accused) me that I have called a wrong number (Kid, your company has given only this number for 24 hr customer support- look here) and asked me to call a different number. And when I tried to explain things he dumped me! Yes he cut the call. He has just now cut a customer. But no worries this is a government company. This poor customer must use this website to book his ticket. So this customer is really not cut-off. He will somehow find his way out. So he can go back to chit-chatter with his friends or even he can answer another customer’s call and behave rudely again.

I tried to call the same number again. I got no choice. The tickets are getting sold out. You know about southern railways in India. If you don’t know there is an excellent documentary from BBC. I must hurry and fix this problem. I cannot use local Indian bank account. Because I don’t have money in the account. Oh don’t feel sorry. Never mind.

I called the same 24 hr customer support number given by IRCTC hoping this time some one else other than that frustrated guy will answer my call. After an automated welcome message the line went dead. I am calling from Singapore. I tried again. An automated welcome message. Line is dead. Again. Automated message. Line dead.

I got no choice. I must fix this. I again called by bank’s customer service.One thing I like with customer service in Singapore’s bank is they never dump you. They never cut your call. Attitude man. Attitude. Learn from them. Honestly you have got tons to learn from Singapore’s customer service. She doesn’t have a clue. She kept on saying that the bank didn’t get any transaction request from the merchant. But she didn’t dump me. She is finding a way to help me out. At-last I changed my question: Is there any other problem other than this? I mean do you have any other new rule for purchase using VISA? Think lady. Think. Yes she got it. I must have my card verified by visa, if a merchant requires this.

Now back to that frustrated customer service guy sitting before that dump terminal in IRCTC: why didn’t you know about this? Are you not trained enough to handle this situation? Apparently this “verified by visa” is a new requirement that’s why you have given the message in bold red. If this is a new requirement aren’t you taught to handle the customers with weird problems like I had yesterday? Even if you are not taught about this can’t you think rationally to help sort out this problem? After all this “verified by visa” is a new requirement by your site. Pity you that you cannot sort out this simple problem.

Even after I registered my VISA card with “Verified by VISA” program using CITIBANK’s site, I still cannot book the ticket from IRCTC. I used CITI PG and ICICI PG. No luck. Same message like “Payment unsuccessful: no funds or invalid expiry date”. Go to hell.

Since I was unable to reach the 24 hr customer service of IRCTC I can only call my bank’s customer service. She felt pity on me and advised to leave this and kindly asked me to go to sleep (time was 1AM) and try it out in the morning. That was sensible.

In the morning I was discussing this with my friends here and they are totally ignorant of “Verified by Visa” process and they are fully aware of repeated transaction failure from ICICI PG and CITI PG. One of friends asked me to keep on trying 5 or 6 times only then you will have luck. Then he suddenly asked me to try AXIS PG.

I tried, it worked. AXIS PG is working like a charm. Smooth as a breeze. And all of a sudden every thing is smooth after a bumpy hell of a ride for more than 3 hrs.