redbus.in completed one year since their launch last week. I came across this site very recently, and was impressed from the word go.
It is a an online bus ticket booking service based out of Bangalore. They operate in the same space as ticketvala and IndiaBusticket. The hallmark of Redbus is the simplicity of their online offering.
Who is behind Redbus ?
redBus is an innovation from Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd. The company is setup by BITS-Pilani alumnus with the vision to innovate for everyone’s convenience.
The technical team of redBus is a group of graduates from BITS-Pilani, one of the best Engineering institutes in the country and the marketing is headed by an IIM-B Alumni. With work experience in various companies like IBM, Honeywell and Texas Instruments, the team redBus is both technically and managerially very strong.
Online bus ticket booking process of Redbus:
Like mentioned earlier, redBus.in is all about simplicity. The 4 step process should not take more than 5 minutes, even lesser.
To start off, just select the destination you want to go, date, bus type and number of people:
I found that redBus had quite a bit of options for destinations, more than most of the other services offer. Once you choose these fields, you are immediately presented with availability of Buses.
You can even choose the seats from the bus based on a nice simple visual lay-out. That is sweet !
Once you have chosen the seats, make the payment. I was pleasantly surprised with the options available for payment. They have literally 20 to 25 different options that a user can make payment. I think one this is one the best features of redBus along with their simplicity. Click here to get a glimpse of all the different payment options they have to offer.
Once you have made your payment, you are done. You will get the confirmation. In case if you do have any problems, they also have a live chat to help you out.
The reason I have featured redBus.in is because of their simplicity and user-friendliness. In this Web2.0 age, however good your service may be, if you are not user friendly people are not going to come back to you.
The only grouse I have is they do not have any social Bookmarking / viral abilities, which would have made them even more stickier.
By the way, A very happy anniversary to the redbus.in team.