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EaseMyTrip founder Prashant Pitti revealed that how they gave 180 crores to their customers and won the lifetime trust.
As everyone knows the Covid pandemic gave a pause for traveling for a long period. However, corona hit India around February 2020. Then all modes of transport came to a halt for some months.
Especially, airlines were one of the most affect transport. Because there was a risk of spreading the virus from the foreign members. So, the Indian government stopped airlines for months to control the spread of the coronavirus.
During the pandemic time, some customers booked tickets in advance without prior information about the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown situation.
So, most of the people could not travel and also did not receive their money back from the book platforms.
So, Prashant Pitti also noticed frustration from the customers. Then he turned the crisis into an opportunity by taking a big risk. Yes, Prashant Pitti planned to give customers’ money back instead of promising a 100% refund in the future.
This is what most ticket booking platforms MakeMyTrip, Yatra, and others did.
From the business point of view, if the airlines gave the customer money for the booking platforms then only they can give refunds to their customers. However, during that time most of the airline companies were under losses and their cashflows were null.
So, most of the book platforms promised their customer to give a refund later.
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200 cr in the bank
At this point in time, every customer was annoyed with the ticket booking platforms. So, Prashant Pitti noticed that this was a great time to win customer trust.
He planned to give back customers money from their savings. EaseMyTrip has saved 200 crores from the past 12 years of operations. So, they had 200 crores in their account.
Prashant Pitti took the risk to give the customer money from their savings. Then he took a bold decision, he released 180 crores from the back and started giving refunds to its customers.
Finally, EaseMyTrip customers got their refunds instantly and the news went viral.
Now EaseMyTrip showered their gratitude to the company by tagging on social media. On the other hand, a customer who had booked their air tickets from other platforms had taken charge by complaining and tweeting.
Even some customer tweeted “If EaseMyTrip can do to their customers. Then why are you not refunding our money now”.
So other companies were just in the spotlight on the negative shades. But EaseMyTrip utilized the situation brilliantly and won customer trust. Also, it welcomed other new customers as well.
Now there is a more than 93% retention rate on the platform. This means most likely any customer will book the ticket on the EaseMyTrip platform every time.
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Reason Behind EaseMyTrip giving 180 crores to their customers
Prashant Pitti founder of EaseMyTrip utilized and converted a crisis to an opportunity to win lifetime trust from the customers.
He knew if the airline company could not give them refunded money in the future. Then EaseMyTrip would lose 180 crore. So, it might get land to an even worse financial crunch in the future.
But every risk should be taken to make something big. So, Prashant Pitti took the risk and gave refunds worth 180 crores to EaseMyTrip customers.
Later, it turned out to be the best decision in his life. Now more customers trust the EaseMyTrip platform more than any old and reputed platforms.
EaseMyTrip won the Race
Now EaseMyTrip is the second-largest airline booking platform. In 2023, it made a revenue close to 8000 crores. Even it is growing 100% year-on-year—more than that the company is the only profitable compared to its competitors.
They are spending any money on marketing. Prashant Pitti founder said that they spend money on marketing and always try to give the best service to their customers.
From this, we can learn that it is always important to win the trust of the customers. So, any brand should focus on winning the trust of customers rather than spending on irrelevant marketing and ads.