If you are a beer drinker living in Mumbai & Delhi and can spare 2 hours of your time for a study on what the youth think & what they drink - drop me a line.
You get cool cash (Rs 1000 to be precise!) + dinner/ high tea depending on time of day + meet some interesting people.
You need to be free on these days depending on yr age category:
MUMBAI
Males (18-24): Fri Oct 9, 7-9 pm
Females (18-24): Sat Oct 10, 4-6 pm
Males (25-35): Sat Oct 10, 7-9 pm
Venue: Ramada palm grove
DELHI
Females (18-24): Sun Oct 11, 4-6 pm
Males (25-35): Sun Oct 11, 7-9 pm
Males (18-24): Mon Oct 12
Sunday is in south Delhi (Lajpat nagar) and Monday at DLF phase 1 in Gurgaon.
Please note that you must not work in the advertising, MR, PR or alcohol industry. And that this is not a beer tasting or sampling session - you will only *talk* about beer. However you are free to go and blow up your cash however you like :)
If u think you fit the bill drop a line with your contact details including tel no to rashmi_b at yahoo.com.
Just mailed you. I am interested to join.
ReplyDeleteWould have loved to join. :)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately i'm out of mumbai on 9th & 10th .
Hi, I live in Mumabi and I will be more than happy to do the job..
ReplyDeleteHave sent you a mail regarding this.
ReplyDeleteWould have loved to help, but i dont drink :)
ReplyDeleteSent out a mail to you.
ReplyDeleteI've just posted the post link on Facebook, hope u get some more participants... :)
ReplyDeletedammmn! I wish i was in delhi!
ReplyDelete18 year !!! 21 is the legal age of drinking and i dont think here they make an exception based on -OH content of drink
ReplyDeleteIll be a..lol
ReplyDeleteRashmi - can you share how many thousand replies you got? :)
ReplyDeleteKaustav - it's not a beer party, no alcohol being served. Ppl of any age can *talk* about anything :)
ReplyDeleteDhruva - yes I was flooded by response :) Not all fit the required profile or are free on that day & time tho. But clearly, a lotta ppl drink beer !
Would have loved to join and talk about all this, but i stay in Bangalore.
ReplyDeleteDoes sound good; unfortunately don't fit the age bar!! LOL! Good luck!!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to lend my services !
ReplyDeleteTarique
hey kushal m 25.....if dats fine...count me in for sat 4-6 discussion lemme know...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletebring it on in Chennai too! :D
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested...but am an advertising professional so dunno if u'd allow me to participate in FGDs. But am mighty interested coz these insights wud be of help to me too.
ReplyDeleteHi, I'm interested and I've mailed you.
ReplyDeletetsk! why such partiality to females! if u keep it the same age group as males i can DEFINITELY go :)
ReplyDeletei work in one of those mentioned :D...
ReplyDeleteInteresting, you are looking for 18-24 years old and the legal drinking age in India is 25. LOL
ReplyDeleteGood topic
ReplyDeleteIs it worth talking rashmi?I mean,Is that problem that we got in our hand.Its not lyk i am dicouraging or somthing.No alchohol's r worth drinking.As 4 as age is councerned guys there is no legal age 4 anythin in our country
Alcohol is definitely worth drinking, it alleviates you, it makes you forget things, cut some time out of you life, what more can you ask for? Addiction to alcohol, is what should be avoided, but that is true for many more things/habits.
ReplyDeletelolz.. loads of people..and its pretty late.. I should have seen this post earlier..
ReplyDeleteBTW please do write how was the 'love-beer' session :) and I have just bought your book from crosswords.. will start reading it soon :)
nice to meet you Rashmi :)
Hello Rashmi! I missed the beer thing as i did not check the blog out recently. Anyways, i just bought your book today and started reading. I feel it is written for people like me. However, I wonder if one has to be an MBA to be an entrepreneur?
ReplyDeleteHey, just thought I'd let you know that the session was fun!and the high tea was much appreciated :)
ReplyDeleteRecently I read a book by Rashmi Bansal “Stay hungry Stay foolish” which sings praises about entrepreneurs from IIMA who have supposedly made it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the company featured in that book is makemytrip.com. Till now I have been using cleartrip.com for booking tickets online. Now I decided to try makemytrip.
And this email is about my experience with makemytrip.CON. That’s right…what a CON company it is.
I booked a ticket for my mom using makemytrip. Makemytrip promptly charged my credit card along with its commission, sent me a booking confirmation mail and an e-ticket for the trip. So far so good.
On the day of the trip, my mom reached the airport and presented her ticket at the airline counter. To her surprise, the airline told her that there is no PNR generated for her e-ticket and her name does not show up in the passenger list.
She called me and I called the makemytrip customer service thinking that there must have been some miscommunication. To my horror, makemytrip customer rep told me that this indeed was true, that no airline ticket was ever issued or PNR generated against the e-ticket issued by makemytrip. And there is nothing that they can do. All they will do is refund the money and obviously the commission deducted by them or by credit card company won’t be refunded.
My mom was stranded at the airport and had to book a new ticket at double the price for her trip.
And then on top of that, makemytrip sends me a customer service feedback mail about the trip, makemytrip and airline for a ticket that they never issued.
I sent a mail to Deep Kalra copy to service@makemytrip and the shameless people have not even cared to respond to me. How could they explain the con that they are running
In the absence of any response from makemytrip, this is my interpretation of the CON perpetrated by makemytrip.
They will have a fixed quota of tickets for a particular dare from a airline say 100 which they will advertise on their website. Customers will keep booking the tickets at different times and price of ticket will keep rising as the departure date approaches. Now if you have 100 tickets to sell, when you exhaust those 100 tickets, you will obviously stop selling. But NOT makemytrip. They will keep selling tickets even when they have exhausted their quote of tickets with the airline.
So now 135 customers have booked the ticket. But makemytrip has only 100 tickets. What do they do? My guess is they pick the top 100 customers by the price paid for the ticket. So if you have booked a ticket well in advance and consequently paid a low price, you are out of luck. They will not issue ticket to you and they will not tell you the same. On the day of your trip, you will pack your bags and reach at the airport and discover the fraud committed on you.
Then makemytrip will make some excuse about technical system and refund your ticket price but at the same time not refunding the commission they charged you for the SERVICE (sic!) they never delivered and ticket they never booked.
On top of that the refund will come to your account/credit card after 2 weeks, so obviously they will make interest money on the float since the time they charged you for the ticket till they refunded it.
So assuming they overbook on an average 25 extra tickets for a particular flight in a day and there are 50 flights. That’s 1250 tickets in a day on which they make commission and interest on the customer’s money.
Cool business model, isn’t it?
One of company featured in Rashmi Bansal’s book was Subhiksha who we know in what state is having conned it own employees of even their PF.
I think its now makemytrip’s turn.
Rashmi, did you do a background check on the entrepreneurs and their business models featured in your book? I would be very cautious in doing any business with any entrepreneur featured in your book.
Manu, you should definitely blog about this and spread the word. Cleartrip also had one such case with Kiruba. The story has got a lot of attention even from main stream media, more so because clear trip made amends.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your support Priyanka. Internet is what made the fortunes of these companies and internet (blogs/emails) will expose their flaws and bring their fall. Those who live by internet will die by it..if they ignore it.
ReplyDelete@Manu
ReplyDeleteThat's very pathetic behavior on the part or makemytrip. Such news eats away our trust in them. Better book on the specific airline websites to be sure from next time.
Also, rather than some big conspiracy on part of makemytrip, I think it can even be work of some commission-hungry agent who thought he could get away with this and company is trying to save its face by suppressing the matter. Anyhow, this should be spread.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@ Manu pretty interesting. I had hoped you might have blogged about at your blog but no. It is a likely and interesting hypothesis. Also interesting to know that Kiruba www.kiruba.com also had this issue. Could I re-use your content on my blog where I am making/talking about similar patterns as well.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hear from you.
Thanks Varun & Shirish.
ReplyDeleteHere's an update on my problem with makemytrip.
When I did not get any response from makemytrip even after sending them a link to this blog, I wrote a mail to Philip Wolf who serves as an independent director on the board of makemytrip. Within a couple of hours, I got a response from him and also from makemytrip.
In short, Makemytrip decided to reimburse the fare difference for the ticket that my mom had to purchase at the airport. They also ensured that another upcoming trip of mine gets confirmed tickets.
Deep Kalra (Founder CEO, makemytrip) called me the next day and apologised and explained the reason for problem was switching in travel system amadeus and promised to honour all the tickets booked by customers at makemytrip lest it leads to dent in makemytrip's equity in the minds of customer. Good decision.
The firms must realise that in this connected world, the word on how you treat your customer spreads very fast and within a few days everyone from public at large to directors, investors, CEO's college community yahoogroup, firm's employees and even CEO's wife's kitty friends or CEO's kid's school will know. And then everyone knows what you did last evening..to your customers.
What RTI has done to expose the misdeeds of Government offices, emails/blogs/groups will do to private firms.
Reproduced below are the mails from Philip Wolf and Makemytrip Customer service Head Geeta Eral...
Thank you for your email. I am terribly sorry to learn of this and understand that the team at MakeMyTrip is already working on a most equitable remedy.
Furthermore, I can absolutely assure you that this a quality organization in every way. This situation described below is completely at odds with anything I have personally or indirectly experienced working with MakeMyTrip over many years, so we are all equally interested in getting to the bottom of it.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
With kind regards,
Philip Wolf
Dear Mr. Sehgal:
I write to you in response to your mail. Deep is currently travelling and will surely connect with you.
First and foremost kindly accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused to you due to the technical error at our end. I do realize that such apologies mean very little if not followed by action towards improvement. In this particular case we were unable to issue the ticket due to technical error and as a process we manually issue the tickets ensuring the availability and in some case we offer an option as we understand the importance for a customer’s travel. I apologize for the lapse in this case where the ticket issuance was missed out at our end.
We have processed full refund for this ticket and would reimburse any fare difference that you would have incurred to purchase a new ticket. Would request you to please share the ticket details to get the refund cheque initiated. The ticket issuance for BOM-DEL is in process and details will soon be shared with you.
We have taken cognizance of your comments and the spirit in which you have shared your feedback. It is unfortunate to note that your recent interaction with us has not been up to your satisfaction.
Fortunately, such matters are an exception but nevertheless the annoyance and frustration is fully understood. I hope this matter will not prejudice your view of Make My Trip and we look forward to assisting you with your future travel plans.
Please let me know a convenient time tomorrow when I could call you to discuss the issue.
Appreciate your co-operation.
Regards
Geeta Eral
Head- Customer Delight
geeta.eral@makemytrip.com
Ph: +91 9910361221
Yeah Manu they apologized, seems fair, you will get your money back, fair again . . .but who pays for all the not-so-good time you and mother had. Take care.
ReplyDeletewww.indiahype.com indias microblog
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ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteHope you are doing well! This is Anamika Tiwari Chief Editor at Webneetech.com. At present we are interviewing entrepreneurs and now we are starting another section to feature (interview) bloggers and their blog on webneetech.com
Would like to feature your interview on our website.
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Manu, that was a great experience you had. May be I am a cynic - but remember, you got a "good" response only after involvement of Philip Wolf - the director. Otherwise it would have been yet another complaint & you would have been treated as yet another customer :)
ReplyDeleteRashmi, are you still writing on this blog? No update for 1 month?
didn't you know in the first place that rashmi bansal is a con herself..
ReplyDeleteshe takes pride in saying .. "its not about what you do or what you are capable of, its about whom you connect with"
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ReplyDeleteRashmi -
ReplyDeleteFound ur drunkards :)?
If so, why not get back to what you do best - Blogging!!!
http://subu-ki-kahani.blogsot.com
WHY no females above 25????
ReplyDeleteLong time.. no blog.. What happened?
ReplyDelete