Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 12)

Sramana: What you describe about the call center and the home delivery service is OK for India. In countries that have low-cost labor, there are more opportunities for mixing high tech efficiencies with high-touch customer service. That becomes harder in countries where labor is more expensive. It is an interesting model.

Phanindra Sama: It can also serve as a platform to migrate people onto using these technologies. If a company suddenly puts up a website, then they are doing something that is very different from the way people are used to transacting their business. If you have a call center then they can relate to you and speak with someone. You can then let those call center agents refer customers the website because that customer already trusts you as a business.

Sramana: How easy has it been to get Indian consumers to use credit cards?

Phanindra Sama: We have had to teach consumers how to use credit cards. This was particularly true when we first started. In India, when someone purchased a bus ticket over the phone or over the Internet, that was usually the first time they had used their credit or debit card. They have to know where to put the 16-digit number and where to put the CVV number. We would teach them how to do that. We have built internal analytics on the website that allow us to know when consumers have stopped the transaction because they can’t get the credit card information correct. We then call that consumer and help him or her through the process. We spend a lot of time teaching people how to use their cards.

Sramana: Once you teach them, they become lifelong customers.

Phanindra Sama: Exactly. That makes it worth the effort. Absolutely. That helps us get more customers, which then helps us get more bus operators. That helps us get more distribution partners, which in turn helps us get more bus operators. It becomes a cycle.

Sramana: What is the status of the company? Are you planning on taking it public?

Phanindra Sama: I don’t think that we will take it public any time soon. There is a lot of work to do internally. We are still working on it.

Sramana: Do you have pressure from your investors to take it public yet?

Phanindra Sama: No. I think we had a lot of good things happen to us, and our investors are part of that. We have a very good rapport with them. We have taken a second round of funding from Helion. We are a very capital-efficient company. In all, we have had $1.5 million come into the company. We have significant traffic and sell 2 lakh seats per month.

Sramana: That is fantastic execution.

Phanindra Sama: We have a very conservative, South Indian mentality. That is what people tell us. I attribute it to mentors. They have kept us focused on making money, not on getting eyeballs. We have kept to core principles.

Sramana: This has been an excellent story. Good luck!

This segment is part 12 in the series : Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama
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