Monday, August 20, 2012

Chinmaya workshop on knowledge representation

Sounds really good. Wish i could go. Also wish they had these workshops in Mumbai.

They also had one earlier in the year (in June i think) on introduction to traditional logic systems conducted by Prof. Jha of Pune.




Sunday, August 12, 2012

No idea how that got formed

Jet?
Seen at Rajarajeshwari nagar, Bangalore.


Saturday, May 05, 2012

Great Service

Was doing some airline bookings for some family members. I had a voucher code for a certain travel portal from my Kotak credit card. Tried to get through the payment twice. Failed. Wasn't sure if it was a card issue or an issue with the portal.

Then went to www.cleartrip.com. Kotak surprisingly failed there too. Was going to call the card company when my phone rang. It was an executive (Gurbir) from the Mumbai cleartrip office.

"Sir, i think you've been trying with your card and it isn't going through. Ican help you get through the bookings and hold your reservations till then".

i was happy.

Response speed and the fact that they are eager to prevent a sale (and customer) from going away.

He asked if i could try and use another card of mine and get the bookings done through the IVR. i said i could but didn't know how to get the OTP (One-Time-Password) for my HDFC credit card. He had the number ready with him.

i was impressed.

i sms-ed HDFC, obtained the OTP. Gurbir called again in 2 minutes. He confirmed my schedule and connected me to the IVR. Gurbir just had one more piece of information for me - apparently there was a discount on the ticket and the fare i saw on the website was now Rs. 300 lesser.

i was delighted.

The IVR  process was smooth. After which he came on the phone again confirming the schedule and bookings.

I know one thing now. I am going to do all my bookings from cleartrip. Till they maintain these kind of service levels.

Wonder why the earlier portal didn't try this process out.  Lack of imaginaton? Lack of hunger? Possibly what differentiates a successful business from others in a competitive environment. And what about the credit card company. Wouldn't they get an alert when their card isn't going through for maybe some technical reason? Couldn't they follow up? For time sensitive transactions, i'll think twice before using this card now.