Goibibo is India's largest online travel booking platform that offers flight, hotel, bus and holiday package bookings. As an aggregator, it faces issues with inconsistent cancellation and refund policies compared to airlines. The document analyzes Goibibo's services and customer complaints, identifies gaps in standards, delivery and communication, and provides recommendations to improve reliability, responsiveness and customer empathy through transparent policies, responsive customer service and vendor accountability.

1. Critical Analysis of Goibibo
Services
PROSENJIT SARKAR

2. Introduction: Goibibo
 Part of the ibibo Group formed in 2009
 Largest online hotels booking engine
 One of the leading air aggregators
 #1 ranked mobile app under the travel category
 Became the first Indian OTA to partner with Google Flight Search
 Core value differentiator is delivery of the fastest and the most trusted user experiences
 Grown its hotels booking volumes by 5x in 2015 over the previous year
 Group also owns India's No. 1 online Bus ticketing platform, redBus.in and car pooling app, “ibibo
Ryde”
 One of the Best Tech Brands of 2016 by The Economic Times
 Website of the Year, India in Leisure & Travel – 2014 & 2015

3. Services offered
 Domestic & international flight bookings
 Bus travel bookings
 Hotel bookings – High-end & Budget rooms
 Holiday Packages
 Mobile Apps
 City Travel Guides

4. Issues faced
 Since Goibibo is an online travel aggregator, the major issue faced by customer is with
bookings, refunds & cancellations
 Here’s a gist of the consumer complaints on their Facebook page:
 Goibibo not flexible in waving airline charges for any changes made – Whereas airlines can
make changes
 Cancellation & refund policy not consumer friendly
 Cancellation & refund policy is different from airline’s website – they’re more consumer
friendly
 Pictures of hotel rooms are apparently photo-shopped
 No accountability for poor services provided by vendors like bus operators
 Customer Service department not competent at handling grievances

5. Personal Experience
 Booked Jet Airways flight 24 hours before journey
 Goibibo had pre-selected travel insurance (additional fee) on checkout page
 Travel insurance section is in a smaller font-size
 Applied for cancellation 6 hours prior to boarding but received no refund as promised
 Customer service executives bluntly refused to share any company information like address, CS
email
 Finally, got assistance on the fifth attempt
 Posted my grievance on the Facebook review section and got a callback from the CS Manager
within minutes
 Partial Service Recovery: Refund is finally process but the journey was a nightmare

6. Blueprint for booking a flight on Goibibo
Physical Evidence
Customer Actions
Onstage/ Visible
Contact
Employee Actions
Backstage/
Invisible Contact
Employee Actions
Support Services
Website
Browse
Website/
App
Flight/ airline
Selection
Provide itinerary
details
Make Payment
Customer Service
Apply for
Cancellations &
refunds
Mobile App
Payment Gateway Amadeus/ Galileo Cancellation & refunds
system

7. Gaps Model for Goibibo
 Gap 1: Knowledge gap
 The organization is fully aware of what the customer wants in terms of services
 No knowledge gaps exist

8. Gaps Model for Goibibo (Contd)
 Gap 2: Standards gap
 No sync between their and the airlines’ cancellation & refunds policy
 No transparency in T&Cs
 Inefficient vendor management

9.  Gap 3: Delivery gap
 Poor customer service
 Discounts/ promotions are loaded with more T&Cs than offers
Gaps Model for Goibibo (Contd)

10.  Gap 4: Communications gap
 The policy statements are not written in layman terms
 Upselling options are pre-selected resulting in the customer accidently agreeing to buy
them if he/ she is in a hurry
 Not adhering to turn-around times
Gaps Model for Goibibo (Contd)

11. Gaps Model for Goibibo

12. Recommendations: ServQual Model
1. Reliability:
a) As a service provider, your customers must feel that your processes and T&Cs are
transparent.
b) A smaller font usually means there’s something that you don’t what your customers
to see
c) Since you’re an aggregator and the seats are actually being provided by the airlines,
your cancellation & refunds policy should be in line with the airline’s
d) Optional services like travel insurance must not be masked to look mandatory

13. Recommendations: ServQual Model (Contd)
2. Responsiveness:
a) Your website/ app is used to make bookings, hence, the Customer Service
department is for handing queries and complaints
b) Ensuring minimum hold period on your CS lines will tell your customers that you’re
eager to help them
c) When you’re aware of any service outages, it’s a good practice to ensure maximum
staffing to handle the queries and reduce the number of irate customers

14. 3. Assurance:
a) You must take full accountability of the hotels and bus service providers who've a tie-
up with you.
b) Take necessary action against them if they’re found to provide misleading
information or give bad service
c) Have more rigor on your service SLAs when it comes to complaints and deal with
deviation strictly
Recommendations: ServQual Model (Contd)

15. 4. Empathy:
a) Customer service department must have staff who’re aware of the importance of
service recovery using customer delight
b) Have adequate and regular audits to keep a check on executives/ vendors who are at
the frontline
c) Plan regular training programs in customer service and soft skills for the frontline
executives
Recommendations: ServQual Model (Contd)

16. References
 reserved, ibibogroup A. rights. (2016). About Goibibo - fastest growing travel
company - www.Goibibo.Com. Retrieved August 21, 2016, from Goibibo,
https://www.goibibo.com/aboutus/
 Ibibo (2016). . In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibibo
 Places. (2016). Facebook. Retrieved August 21, 2016, from
https://www.facebook.com/Goibibo/posts_to_page/