An open letter to the CEO of MakeMyTrip, Mr. Deep Kalra.

An open letter to the CEO of MakeMyTrip, Mr. Deep Kalra. 

To,
Mr. Deep Kalra
Chairman & Group CEO
MakeMyTrip Inc.

Dear Sir,

I have been a customer of your services for over 3 years. On the 13^th of January 2015, I booked a Jet Airways flight ticket for the 16^th at 2:55am from Mumbai to Chennai (9W-463). Booking ID NF2204048301804. The trip was planned on a short notice as I was visiting my grandmother who’s health is deteriorating. The booking was confirmed and the entire payment was made.

On the next day, i.e. the 14^th at 7:43 pm, I received an SMS from MakeMyTrip claiming that they have received my cancellation request for the above mentioned booking.  The reason for cancellation mentioned in the message was “Flight Non Operational.” I was shocked on receiving this message. I panicked as I was supposed to leave the following night and called up your customer care service. Unfortunately, your executives were busy & I waited on hold for about 40 minutes. Since I did not have the patience to wait on hold any longer, I tried to find out your office numbers but to no avail. My parents were in Chennai at that time and they were worried too. I called it a day and decided to contact MakeMyTrip the next morning.  

On the 15^th, I called up Jet Airways since I wasn’t expecting anything from you. I asked them if the flight was functional and they said that the flight was scheduled as planned. I then asked them about my reservation and they told me that my reservation had been cancelled. When I asked them for the details regarding the said cancellation,  they said that they could not provide me with any details as the booking was done through an agent.

I had no other choice but to call your customer care again. I was talking to your executive Mr. Atul Gupta. He wasn't being helpful at all. When I asked him to transfer my call to a senior executive, he refused to do so. After being adamant, he put me on hold for around 20 minutes and finally transferred my call to a senior executive. 

What happened next was completely unexpected and shocking. The supervisor was extremely rude. After I said that I will take legal action, your senior executive, Mr. Sumit Shah had the audacity to tell me to do whatever I want. This type of arrogance cannot be tolerated, especially from a corporate as reputed as yours. Further, Mr. Shah had the nerve to say, "That is all we can help you with. If you want to book another ticket with us, we are happy to help you." Seriously? Do you really expect me to book another ticket with you Mr. Kalra? Especially after what you have put me through. You can check your calls as they are recorded, right Mr. Kalra?

I took to social media as there was no positive response from your company. I posted my problem on your Facebook page. Unlike the customer care call centre, I received quick replies on the said post. After explaining my situation, they gave me the timing of the cancellation and the IP address through which the cancellation had been made. 

Let me put this on record Mr. Kalra, I was in college at the time the cancellation was apparently made, i.e. 4:56 pm. I have people who can vouch for this. Moreover, the IP address given to me by your company belongs to someone from Bangalore ( 117.216.227.126 ). This is absolutely ridiculous as I live and study in Mumbai. I also have no relatives in Bangalore whatsoever.  After I brought this to your notice, your company should have forwarded my complaint to the cyber cell. You are asking me to handle this situation and putting me under further stress. It is not my fault anyway, and I have to run around solving your problem. If you still believe that your executives are right and the problem is indeed mine, I would be grateful if you found out who the Bangalore IP belongs to and take some action, instead of asking your customers to do all the work. I am not supposed to be doing this in the first place. If I really wanted to cancel the ticket and get away without paying the penalty, I wouldn’t have booked train tickets as a last resort. This is a logical explanation, isn’t it Mr. Kalra? 

I had paid an amount of Rs. 4701. I was charged a penalty of Rs. 2087, for a cancellation that I never made in the first place. Not only this, I had to bear the expenses of a train ticket as I had no other option and MakeMyTrip wasn’t putting me on another flight. This sum might not be a lot for you, but it is my parents’ hard earned money. After arguing with your executives, they decided to give me a refund of Rs. 250 as ‘a gesture of goodwill’. The incompetence of your executives is intolerable and ludicrous.

Your executives claimed that the IP address does not belong to MakeMyTrip and they cannot help me further. News flash Mr. Kalra, it does not belong to me either. Why am I supposed to bear the burden?

I would like to bring one important thing to your notice. I received an email from Gurdeep Kaur claiming that the company will cross check my complaint in 3 working days and if found at fault, will bear the loss. It has been 18 days since I received that email, I’ve had no further replies since.

The way Mr. Shah spoke to me, left me with no doubt that these sort of incidents might be rampant in your company, and people do not have the resources or the courage to fight against a big corporate like yours. 

Is this what I get in return for trusting your brand and your company? Is this the so called ‘quality of service’ you promise? I honestly felt betrayed and I continue to feel cheated. 

I was forced to write this letter even though I never saw myself doing so. I was very upset that I could not make my problem heard beyond a MakeMyTrip call centre executive. You all are literally hiding behind your outsourced call centers. I was shocked to see that I couldn’t find an email address or contact number of a single manager, let alone the CEO of the company. 

I have had enough of this, but not without spreading the word about your service amongst my friends and family. There’s no doubt that your company is incompetent or completely unprofessional. I don’t know what effect this letter might have on your customer service, but rest assured that you will now be able to deduct my business from your annual profits if not more. Although that might be just a whisker in your overall mess, it’ll be one which was done with due diligence. We’ve had enough of your staff’s condescending attitude and have received completely inadequate service, as well as ignorance of enormous proportions, something I would have never expected from a company as big and ‘reputed’ as yours.

Allow me to be clear, we do not use your services for free. You have failed miserably in meeting the expectations of your customers based on the promises you've made to them.

Regards,
Aaron Abhishek
Booking ID NF2204048301804

  My booking

 The cancellation SMS I received

  The IP address provided by MakeMyTrip through which the cancellation was apparently made

 My IP address

 

The IP address provided by MakeMyTrip