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.

Gordon Brown and Apple vs Adobe

Gordon Brown has stepped down at last. Oh no don’t worry I am not going to write politics now. But it is a kind of Poetic line that has something do with Gardon Brown and the hung parliament. I read this line in yesterday’s Guardian. This guy describes the coalition as below:

a rainbow coalition made up of every colour except Brown

*

You could have read Steve Jobs take on Flash. And scribd has shed its flash and opted for HTML5. So the Flash vs Apple war is at its heights now.
Non-technical readers please bear with me for a minute. But one thing I don’t understand is the “future” part. You Tube and few other video sites have rolled out their beta versions in HTML5. It is obvious that HTML5 is coming. But the question is “when”? It might take 2 years for HTML5 to be used widely. So until then does Jobs expect people to live with flashless iPhone?

Also do you guys see that Microsoft and Apple getting closer? They are not a good couple but why not? Jobs slashes Flash and Microsoft backs him. Oh, there comes the cliché enemy of your enemy becomes your friend.

Microsoft has considerably invested in Silverlight and it considers and proposes to use Silverlight instead of Flash. So when Jobs trash Flash Microsoft has got no choice but just to applaud.

I heard that from next generation of iPhone the default search engine would be Bing and not Google. News guys!

Adobe has joined hands with Google. Why Google? Google has got Android and Android according to statistics has bet iPhone on sales in US. Android looks promising and Adobe thinks that Android is the potential rival for iPhone.

And such it goes.

*

Originally appeared in my other blog!

The new jobs created by terrorists

Day before yesterday I was watching CNN news early in the morning and was waiting for the Judge’s announcement of the name of the guy who was arrested in the airport in connections with the bomb blast plan and was much pleased to see that these terrorists are creating new jobs.

I came to know about 2 new (at least to me) weird job titles: Terror Expert and Terrorism Analyst.

There are guys who are talking – talking a lot – in CNN about the bomb blasts and when they appear on the screen they have their name displayed under which their job title is also displayed. How will he ever introduce himself to others professionally?

“Hey Mike, Nice to meet you. I am blah blah blah working as Terror Expert..” Sounds weird. But that’s how the world works.

My friend suggested that in future there is a possibility that you could have Terrorism Man like you have Weather Man. And there will be a map displayed in the screen showing parts of the world where there could be a bomb blast today or tomorrow or perhaps a weekly forecast: Terrorism Forecast.

So when you see this terrorism forecast in the TV news, you cannot just take an umbrella with you as you do when you know there is a possibility of bad weather. No, umbrellas cannot protect you from bombs.

You must buy Terrorism Insurance.

- Originally appeared in my other blog readnshared.wordpress.com

Kids and Dreams

*This post originally appeared in my other blog on January 23, 2008 I was reading this book, The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, in the train, as I returned from my office. It’s a long journey, back to home. Almost 45 minutes. I average 40 pages per hour. So I would read 60-70 pages a day in the train. So obviously I am reading a lot these days. I don’t read a thing at home – let alone the novels. I am not going to say anything about The Lovely Bones now, in this post. By the way, if you had known about this novel, probably you would have also known that Peter Jackson’s next project is The Lovely Bones, being starred by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz. I like Mark Wahlberg in a way, particularly in The Departed. I enjoy the scene in which he irritates De Caprio by questioning. He has got a character. When I was reading this novel, The Lovely Bones, I came across a line that triggered my thoughts. The girl named Susie Salmon who is the central character in the novel, wishes a career. She dreams of a career – A Wild Life Photographer. When we were Kids our dreams were entirely different. Our ambitions were high. Our hopes were Ideal. We thought anything is possible. But as age falls over us, we realize our potential. We define reals. We draw lines, circles and rectangles. And we stay with in those structures defined by us from that time onwards. Forever. Kids are always the same, where ever they are. Indian kids too have different career dreams. Apart from those whole lot induced dreams of becoming Doctors and Engineers, some still dream of becoming Reporter, Photographer, Gardenist, zoo keepers etc. But as the time flows by, they become software engineers.What ever they study, electricals, electronics, mechanical, civil, whatever, they become software engineers. They get inputs from the endusers for First Name and Last Name and then, they store to the databases. Of course, they write the program to retrieve those details too.

3.1 crore business in Tasmac shops during Pongal day

* Originally appeared in my other blog!

“நெல்லை: நெல்லை மாவட்டத்தில் பொங்கல் நாளான்று டாஸ்மாக் கடைகளில் ரூ. 3.1 கோடிக்கு மதுபானங்கள் விற்பனையாகி உள்ளது. இது கடந்த ஆண்டை விட ரூ.36 லட்சம் அதிகம் ஆகும்.”

“3.1 crore Indian rupees worth of alcohol was sold during Pongal day in Tasmac alcohol shops in Nellai district (in southern part of India).”

3.1 crore business in just one day? And the same news says that from march – march (1 year) the revenue from these Tasmac alcohol shops is 13000 crores.

What the heck?! What happened to Tamil people?

PS: The budget for free color television scheme is 2400 crores.

Singapore getting diluted?

*Originally appeared in my other blog

It appears so. I saw and heard a lot of evidences in the past 2 weeks. To list them out:

1. I and my friend were standing in a MRT station (underground) waiting for the train. A woman came almost running and dropped few pealed skin of oranges behind the pillar. We were standing behind the pillar and we were watching the whole thing; in fact she knew we (for that matter few other people who were waiting for the train too) were watching but she was least bothered. She dropped the pealed skins and walked slowly as if she had done nothing and sat on the bench and waited for the train. How can she ever do that?

2. On that day I was going to Bukit Batok driving center. I had evaluation exam or something. I took the green line and I had to change line at Jurong East station. Those who don’t know about the station: To change line from Green to Red at Jurong East one can just alight at the stop and walk straight to the waiting red line train. So as usual the red line train was waiting. It was fully packed. People were standing out in the platform and waiting to board the next train. They didn’t squeeze themselves in. I had alighted and I ran to board this waiting train. In a few seconds I knew I cannot board the train because it was already full and people were already waiting and so I slowed my pace. But I could see some people still running with a hope to board the already fully packed train. I watched. In spite of people waiting to board the next train, these new people started to squeeze themselves in to the train. They adjusted themselves with in the slightest gap available. After settling themselves, they just stared the ground and never looked at the people who were already waiting outside the train, never.

3. I was waiting for the green man when a CRV stopped in the nearest bus bay and continued to wait there for few minutes, making other buses to wait for this CRV to move. On the same day I saw another SUV which stopped way after the white line and poked its nose in to the pedestrian crossing.

4. Previous week there was a robbery in one of my friends house. Planned robbery. We were shocked to hear this news because it happened to one of my close friend’s wife. She was alone that day when suddenly current went off. Can you imagine power cut in singapore? No way. She was a bit worried and called her husband. After a while 2 “big” men came and told her that there is an up gradation going on and they will have to check the house and do some changes. This poor girl didn’t gave a second thought and let those 2 “big” men inside the house. And there started the problem. They robbed her gold chain, bangles, watches, her husband’s chain, cell phones etc. They had a one year old baby boy whom those 2 “big” guys had used to blackmail the girl.

5.On the night of this diwali my baby was running high temperature. We do our regular checkups at Kinder Clinic but since that was a public holiday we had no choice but to go to KKH. This was our first visit with baby to KKH.There was a big crowd. And once I entered the emergency information/appointment/registration/pre-checkup hall I saw bits of notice standing on the table showing “Consultation fee $80”. Almost on all counters.After waiting for 2 hours we got our turn to see the doctor.We explained and gave all the data correctly for which she promptly replied “there is a 90% chance of H1N1 for the baby”. And advised us to start Tummy Flu. I asked her why can’t we do some test to confirm this; for which she replied me that now H1N1 has become a common flu and for almost all the cases they prescribe Tummy Flu. And she insisted that the baby need to start taking Tummy Flu with in 48 hours of the fever. Already a day has gone. We were scared. Taking Tummy Flu has its own complications. It is not as simple as taking Panadol. For one reason it is bitter and children(especially toddlers)  find it extremely difficult to drink it. One must mix it with ice cream or something. Another thing is for some children this may lead to nausea, diarrhea etc. Scary information. My kid had nausea effect and she vomited for first three doses. She was very tired and she had diarrhea too. 2 days gone. No effect. Fever didn’t subside. We were really scared now. Luckily the next day, our baby’s pediatrician returned from his overseas conference and I thought of consulting him too; just in case. I was right. At first look our pediatrician told that this is not H1N1. After few checkups he concluded that this is just an ear infection. And he told me that he has a kit to test for H1N1 positive and he can get the result in 5 mins. Just 5 mins. He was pretty much shocked that KKH has prescribed Tummy Flu for ear infection with out even doing this 5 mins test. My baby got well with in 8 hours after we gave her the antibiotic prescribed by our pediatrician.
These are just few examples. What is happening? I am staying in Singapore for almost 5 years now. This is the first time I am seeing a dilution and this is really not good.