Well, me back. I mean back to MS after the tough Jan-Feb-March business months. I didn’t particularly WANT to come back just yet- hey, ease off Ratna, read the rest of the stuff first - but was literallu forced back by this site. I had wanted to finish off my imcomplete review on Freedom at Midnight first as my comeback - but this experience happened!
http://www.irctc.co.in: what shall I say? Where shall I start? For to be honest, there just isn’t much to say here. Just read the stars and the parameters and you are done. What to do? The minimum word limit does tend to impose some limitations on the creative juices. which forces writers such as myself to pen absolute unconnected rubbish just to make up the space! I do believe that most of us have been guilty on this count, so no brickbats please. Thank you very much in advance.
Why do I feel that some of you are going to pan me nevertheless? I just cant shake off the feelng in my bones. I can almost hear the mental wheels of some of you - names purposefully withheld - grinding away at what to pen. so ease off, wliya?
I have been a regular user of this site for the past 8 - 9 months, and used to be an extremely satisified consumer of this service.
First of all, it offers all the information as your fingertips - the trains available on any particular day, the booking status etc -, releasing you from dependency on agents and timetables. Second of all, it offers you freedom from lines.
But - and this is a very big but - the whole experience of shopping for a ticket on this site is fast turning extremely cumbersome with each passing day. And this is despite their various and sundry improvements. The reason? The site load time, the time it takes to login, to search trains and bookings. The site in question is perceptibly slower than other sites, and can turn the experience into a very irritating one indeed.
So much so, in fact, that I have today chosen to return to the ticket line tomorrow for my trip to my hometown!
FOr the past 2 days - yes, 2 days - I have been trying with a singular lack of success to book a simple ticket from point A to point B. In fact, my team sarcastically pointed out to me that they could have gone to and returned from Gwalior in the duration!
And niether is this the first such experience for me on this site. admittedly, the speeds are not always so horrible - but the frequency is increasing day-by-day. While the content os fabulous, the delivery of the same leaves a lot to be desired for
To have good content alone does not deliver value: value depends upon the overall convenience afforded to the customer- which includes the other parameters. And a lot of improvements is required.
Yes, it is a good effort - but no need to be particularly proud of it. In a tech-savvy nation such as ours{at least in terms of IT graduates!}, much better is expected. The standard for us is higher than the world average, the bar for us is at a far higher level. And this site does not come even close to making me feel proud. We can do better!
And, that, my friends, is what got me back to MS earlier than planned!