The Kiruba incident
About a week ago, a Twitter user, @kiruba, posted a status update with a link to a post he created on the Cleartrip Forum. His Twitter update said:
ClearTrip.com took my money and DID NOT book my ticket to Malaysia. Had a harrowing experience at airport. http://is.gd/TtH6
Within a short period of time, 40 new Twitter status updates were posted. Some were simply 'retweeting' Kiruba's update; while others were demanding explanations, crucifying Cleartrip or pushing their own personal agendas.
As a customer-centric company, we are on Twitter to help our customers. We're also a company that places a very high premium on being transparent and honest with our customers; and this blog post is a blow-by-blow explanation of everything that happened here.
We'd like to state at the outset that we're not holding anything back here and even though there were various parties that contributed to the screw-up, we took complete ownership for resolving our customer's problem. That said, here goes...
As soon as we noticed Kiruba's original post, we swung into action. We apologised to Kiruba on Twitter and informed him that we were looking into the issue immediately.
We retrieved details about the reservation from our internal system and found that there were three distinct mistakes made by all three parties involved in the transaction:
- Kiruba had booked an international ticket using a name that did not match with the name on his passport. Had we ticketed the reservation with the incorrect name, he would have been turned away by the airline at time of check-in and Kiruba would have had no one to blame but himself.
- Cleartrip saw the mismatch in names, voided the original ticket and issued a new ticket and PNR for the name as written in the passport, but slipped up in informing Kiruba about his new ticket and PNR number.
- When Kiruba showed up at the airline check-in counter, the airline informed him that his ticket was void, resulting in Kiruba purchasing a new ticket. Had the airline simply done a search for the passenger name, they would have seen that Kiruba actually had a new reservation within the system, but they didn't bother.
The above three reasons caused what we now refer to as the 'Kiruba incident.'
Once we had identified what happened, we reached Kiruba via telephone in Kuala Lumpur and reassured him that his return trip was completely confirmed and that he would have no problems at the airport.
Despite the fact that other parties had contributed to the screw up, we took complete ownership of the problem; we even went above and beyond the call of duty. Not only did we refund Kiruba for the ticket he had to buy at the airport, we paid from our own pocket for Kiruba and his wife to be upgraded to business class for their return journey.
Many Twitter users demanded an explanation about how this could happen and we hope this blog post serves as an adequate explanation of everything that happened and everything that Cleartrip did to make things right for our customer.
Aside: While there were over 40 negative posts about this on Twitter, there were only 5 positive posts. Why is social media such a hotbed of negativity? Reminds us of this line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where Mark Antony says "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
Hrush
We're going to try and answer a few of the questions and comments, so here goes:
- Cleartrip asked Kiruba to email us a copy of his passport. We used the passport copy to cross-check the names.
- We've always opened up every avenue we can to allow customers to voice their grievances and be heard. For customers that aren't into social media, we've had an open customer forum where they can post about problems. Kiruba too had posted to this forum.
- We're not "blaming" social media for anything, we just voiced an opinion about it. We're not the only ones that have this opinion. Cleartrip has always embraced social media as a way to connect with customers and hear from them. We have a blog, a forum and are on Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed and we're very glad we have all of these as a means of conversation with customers.
- We already admitted that it was clearly our mistake in not informing Kiruba about the change in tickets.
- There were considerable costs to Cleartrip associated with upgrades and refunds here. We considered publishing our costs here, but thought that would be crass.
- Finally, we do our best to help ALL our customers, regardless of whether they are social media stars or not.
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Reader Comments (79)
I guess, the same kind of thing happened in this case too. I feel, Mediums like Twitter help to spread negative waves more than the positive..
But in this, Twitter is not to be blamed, but the human tendency.. In anger, we often end up writing more than we should be, we just don't realize that there is other side of the coin too.. And if the user has good amount of followers, the thing will spread like a wave..
Now, about the issue, I feel, what you guys did should be treated as one of the best examples of good customer service.. there are only few companies in India who bother about the customers..
Great going..
Cheers,
Deep
On questioning the social media, I would say that it is a community of people. When the community realised that Kiruba was in trouble they helped by doing whatever they could (tweeting) they were not being negative about you but were trying to help you (negativity was just a by-product). It is a human tendency to help people when they are in trouble. So you are wrong in blaming the social media for spreading the negativity.
You did a great job and you should be proud of it and make sure that consumers are informed in time.
Tarun Chandel
Social Media platforms are no different
Good stuff. I was one of those who re-tweeted Kiruba on the day and now am gonna go back and re-tweet you guys! (gosh! am such a bot!)
Best,
Asfaq Tapia
few questions
1. How did cleartrip allow Kiruba to book a ticket with a name that is not matching his name in the passport?
2. when Cleartrip saw the mismatch in names, is it because of the bug in the system that it didnt inform kiruba?
3. Why did cleartrip failed to double check the names or other criteria after booking the international ticket? If found, this could have helped @cleartrip save lot of money and most importantly would have saved his customers.
I would appreciate the effort took by cleartrip post the Kiruba Incident.
Hope the names mismatch incident will not happen again.
but the great thing is you moved fast and turned the story around. which is fantastic.
long live cleartrip!
We have also noticed when we did a recent Social Media monitoring exercise for the Indian travel industry (http://blog.socialwavelength.com/2009/06/13/social-media-monitoring-of-travel-sector-in-india/) that clearly, Cleartrip was one of the most engaged brands, in Social Media. Your Twitter account was very active and responsive. It is impressive.
Finally, with regards to your "aside", yes, it is an unfortunate fact that bad news travels fast. Also that people love to share embarrassing stories about big brands. That is why the Domino's video was viewed several hundreds of thousands of times, when the employee pizza order disaster broke there.
It is on account of this reason, and the accompanying aspect of Social Media related Online Reputation Management, that we recommend Social Media Monitoring as a first "listening" exercise for any brand. That way, you will catch a wild fire story before it becomes one, and perhaps stop it from becoming a wild fire!
- Sanjay Mehta
CEO, Social Wavelength
www.socialwavelength.com
Being a frequent International Traveler,I know that Air ticketing is a very complex system involving several stake holders each using disconnected systems, adding on to that is post-09/11 security guidelines, confusions on how Indian names are written and so on... I always have my office call up Airline few days before an International Flight to reconfirm my ticket and if available check online the PNR status before leaving to Airport. B'cos nothing can be more stressful than running around pillar to post in Airport before a 24-hour US Trip.
And from Cleartrip you guys should thank Twitter and Social Networking that has given you a chance to identify and fix this issue so soon.
Given all the points of view (expect of course the airlines), seems like you handled the situation well. Respect.
Good is 'expected'
Bad is 'exposed'
When you do a good job, the customer accepts it at most with a smile. He/She may not go the extra mile of writing a testimonial or tweeting about it but when you make a slip, however minuscule it may be, swords are drawn in split second. Talk of tolerance levels. Social Media is full of rants. And that quote from Shakespeare suits it best.
1) It was HIGHLY lax of cleartrip to not to inform the passenger of the new ticket and PNR as soon as old ticket was cancelled and the new issued.
2) Customercare executive SHOULD have checked the name given by the passenger against the one on on his passport. This is standard operating practice.
3) Airline could not have dreamt that cleartrip would be issuing a new ticket for the passenger. They might have gone through the passenger list but it was not mandatory for them to do it.
When one is travelling, there are million things that are needed to be taken care of. Anything unexpected like this can throw us into a loop. One chooses the service of an OTA over others as well as booking tickets directly with the airline with basic expectation of convenience and service. When this expectation is not met, they have every right to protest. Courtesy demands that one gives credit to amends made. Kiruba had tweeted that cleartrip upgraded him and his wife to business class.
To counter negative publicity perhaps @cleartrip can send this post link to all those who retweeted Kiruba's problem.
All the best.
You owned up only to save your a**.
So as usual it was Kiruba who has started this problem and he had blamed others. When will you change kiruba ? I have known kiru (his pet name) for over 8 years and he does the same mistake over and over again. Kiruba for once atleast be a man, own up, and return the business class fare to cleartrip. It was you who started this fiasco so own up the mistake. Lets see what ethics you have now ? Hope you answer this comment. If not rest in the satisfaction that your wife has travelled business class using someone else's money ...does it sound good ?
But it was not good of you to blame the social media. It was the social media which supported someone in distress when in need and also spread the word when things became fine. We have talked good and bad about things even here on this blog. There were many issues which were taken up (blown up) by the media (as a whole) which had good effects later on. Eg here in Bangalore pot holes on the roads magically disappear just one day after the media reports about it.
Similarly I think it was 'also' the media which put you in pressure to get things sorted out quickly. You have to take it in good spirits. I'm not saying you wouldn't have acted otherwise. I myself have written about cleartrip's great customer service before. http://whitespace.umeshgopinath.com/2007/05/cleartrip-customer-support.html
Regarding to the kiruba incident
I was sure that you would fix things up but the upgrade to business class was the cherry on the cake. I was a part of the issue coz i just wanted to be fair; i asked for explanation as kiruba is my friend and i spread the good news as you guys are one of my favorite services. Also you guys did a good thing of writing the story on the blog so we got an insight. The only thing you could have avoided was the negativity you brought in by blaming the people who talked negative. You should be able to take negative comments with the same grace as you take the positive ones.