So the last time I blogged about finding those key, small but your people in establishments, I'd written about this person at my regular printers near Andheri station and this guy who'd helped me out at the Vodafone store. :)
Something similar happened to me recently. In a new city. I shifted to Hyderabad because I got a job with Google! And it felt different to roam around in a city that I didn't know anything about. To meet new people everywhere I went after having gotten used to going to 'usual' places for just about everything, right from your parlour appointments, to your haircuts, to getting xerox, to buying medicines, to buying groceries, to clothes, to drinks, to food, everything... Just made me realize how much of patronising we do in our lives because it just makes our lives simpler and easier to get by... In this new city, I didn't know anyone, and the first people who get to know me and give me some level of preferential treatment because of the loyalty that I showed them are the very people who bring me back home religiously everytime I ask to come back. :) HKB Bus travels.
There's this person there, Ashok. I call him on the office landline, and he recognizes my number. He know which bus I usually take, he helped me get the numbers of their offices in Bombay and Pune. They always manage to get me a ticket, even if I'm booking last minute! There were these two occasions. So whenever V travels, even he books their bus. So that way we've generated quite a bit of loyalty for them. Once when he was traveling, he got chatting with the driver and had a good long conversation with him. Since then, the bus driver recognizes him and thus me. :) One time I'd gone to Pune for the weekend, and then had planned on returning home (to Hyd) on Monday early morning taking the Sunday night bus from Pune. I had a Monday off but had decided on coming back since V had office on Monday and I wanted to chill and relax the whole day at home. But when we reached the bus stop at Pune, I just didn't want to leave... It had been one of those weekends where we spent time together but hardly spoke... And suddenly I was feeling like this wasn't right... So I was a bit low and I was saying that I didn't want to go back. Then the bus came and V decided to be a little more proactive, so he booked a ticket for my return from Bombay and we decided to talk to the bus conductor to see if we could somehow cancel the ticket. I had already paid for the ticket. Anyways, so when I spoke to the conductor he said that nothing could be done this late in the day and all that... the driver recognizing us spoke on my behalf. Said that we were regular travelers and that if I was doing this, it was probably for a good reason. He asked me if I'd booked a ticket for the next day, I said yeah it's HKB. And then the conductor listened to the driver and gave me 2/3rd of my ticket money as refund!! It was unbelievable! :) They usually give 50% back if you cancel 4 hours prior to bus leaving and he gave me 66% at the time of the bus leaving! It was too cool. Of course the next day I traveled back in HKB.
The other time V was supp to go back to Bombay from Hyd and we weren't getting any ticket and I'd got his name written on the waitlist and then as if by magic they got a seat for him to go back on the day of the bus leaving and he didn't have to pay a ransom to head back home. The next time he had to go we had a ticket but he wasn't feeling too well. So we cancelled at the last minute, just 2 hours before the bus had to leave. I was feeling terrible for them. So a day later I went to their office in Hyderabad to pay the full amount for the ticket, and surprisingly they didn't accept the money. They said it's okay, but please don't do that again. We understand it might've been an emergency. The fact that you chose to come all the way here to pay money is more valuable to us than the actual money. And I was stumped to find that people like this even exist!
:)
Something similar happened to me recently. In a new city. I shifted to Hyderabad because I got a job with Google! And it felt different to roam around in a city that I didn't know anything about. To meet new people everywhere I went after having gotten used to going to 'usual' places for just about everything, right from your parlour appointments, to your haircuts, to getting xerox, to buying medicines, to buying groceries, to clothes, to drinks, to food, everything... Just made me realize how much of patronising we do in our lives because it just makes our lives simpler and easier to get by... In this new city, I didn't know anyone, and the first people who get to know me and give me some level of preferential treatment because of the loyalty that I showed them are the very people who bring me back home religiously everytime I ask to come back. :) HKB Bus travels.
There's this person there, Ashok. I call him on the office landline, and he recognizes my number. He know which bus I usually take, he helped me get the numbers of their offices in Bombay and Pune. They always manage to get me a ticket, even if I'm booking last minute! There were these two occasions. So whenever V travels, even he books their bus. So that way we've generated quite a bit of loyalty for them. Once when he was traveling, he got chatting with the driver and had a good long conversation with him. Since then, the bus driver recognizes him and thus me. :) One time I'd gone to Pune for the weekend, and then had planned on returning home (to Hyd) on Monday early morning taking the Sunday night bus from Pune. I had a Monday off but had decided on coming back since V had office on Monday and I wanted to chill and relax the whole day at home. But when we reached the bus stop at Pune, I just didn't want to leave... It had been one of those weekends where we spent time together but hardly spoke... And suddenly I was feeling like this wasn't right... So I was a bit low and I was saying that I didn't want to go back. Then the bus came and V decided to be a little more proactive, so he booked a ticket for my return from Bombay and we decided to talk to the bus conductor to see if we could somehow cancel the ticket. I had already paid for the ticket. Anyways, so when I spoke to the conductor he said that nothing could be done this late in the day and all that... the driver recognizing us spoke on my behalf. Said that we were regular travelers and that if I was doing this, it was probably for a good reason. He asked me if I'd booked a ticket for the next day, I said yeah it's HKB. And then the conductor listened to the driver and gave me 2/3rd of my ticket money as refund!! It was unbelievable! :) They usually give 50% back if you cancel 4 hours prior to bus leaving and he gave me 66% at the time of the bus leaving! It was too cool. Of course the next day I traveled back in HKB.
The other time V was supp to go back to Bombay from Hyd and we weren't getting any ticket and I'd got his name written on the waitlist and then as if by magic they got a seat for him to go back on the day of the bus leaving and he didn't have to pay a ransom to head back home. The next time he had to go we had a ticket but he wasn't feeling too well. So we cancelled at the last minute, just 2 hours before the bus had to leave. I was feeling terrible for them. So a day later I went to their office in Hyderabad to pay the full amount for the ticket, and surprisingly they didn't accept the money. They said it's okay, but please don't do that again. We understand it might've been an emergency. The fact that you chose to come all the way here to pay money is more valuable to us than the actual money. And I was stumped to find that people like this even exist!
:)
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