Need:Travel tickets needed for going to Kolkata
Expectation:
Since I had used the online ticket booking service of IRCTC earlier, I expected to get the booking done in a matter of a few minutes at any time I like. I also expected to pay with my debit card or my credit card depending on the amount as multiple tickets had to be booked. The payment process was also expected to be seamless and I expected the site to work at an acceptable speed.
Another expectation was to be able to confirm my booking and see the seat number successfully after choosing the appropriate train. Viewing the train schedules for the destination from Jamshedpur was also another requirement and I expected to be able to see the schedule for numerous trains.
Experience:
My first attempt at trying to book tickets was a failure. I was unaware of IRCTC having booking timings and realized that I could not log in to my account after 11:30pm. This was very inconvenient as I did not expect an online service to have service hours. Also, it meant that I would have to delay booking the tickets to the following evening (owing to classes during the day) and this would increase my risk of not getting enough available tickets.
The following day, I logged in on the website much sooner than the 11:30pm deadline and checked for the trains available on the date of the journey. The inconvenient part here was that I had to check for different types of trains in different search queries. An AC Chair Car could not be searched for at the same time as an AC Tier II or Tier III train. Since it was a short distance comparisons between the two trains was important. After deciding the train I wanted to take, I tried to book the number of tickets needed. After entering the details of the travelers, the payment had to be made. At this stage, the website stopped working and in order to reach the same stage again, I had to repeat the entire process. The payment was made using a debit card and after the details were entered, the payment gateway redirected me to the IRCTC website. At this point the site started working at snail’s pace making me wonder whether the payment got deducted from my account and if I would now have to go through the laborious process of emailing IRCTC customer care for a refund for tickets which weren’t booked.
Thankfully this detour was avoided and after about a minute or so I had the tickets. The inconvenient, slow and dubious service made me realize the risks of booking tickets online on IRCTC. This was quite contrary to my previous experiences and my expectations prior to using the IRCTC Online Reservation System this time.
Service Analysis:
Service Quality:
In order to determine the perceived service quality of the IRCTC Online Reservation System, the five dimensions of service quality (SERVQUAL) have been used. These dimensions are given in the table below along with the quality perceived by me during my experience.
| Dimension | Rating (Scale of 1-10) 1 – Poor; 10 - Excellent | Analysis of Service |
| Tangibles | 4 | The only tangibles are the website which did not function properly during my experience. |
| Reliability | 5 | The reliability is low since the site slows down or crashes unexpectedly and especially since payment is required this increases the risk of transactions. |
| Responsiveness | - | No interaction with employees |
| Assurance | 5 | Competence of the website and the customer care staff (when contacted) is not high. Courtesy of the customer care staff is barely satisfactory. Security of the service is doubtful since the website crashes unexpectedly. |
| Empathy | - | No interaction with employees |
Based on the above dimensions of quality, I would summarize the perceived service quality to be of a mediocre to low level and I believe I would only use the service in case of lack of other options.
Your opinion and comments are welcome.
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