IRCTC was looking at rolling out the first premium category service, Dial-a-ticket, within a couple of months from now, said Vivek Srivastava, group general manager, IRCTC.
More value-added services were lined up like hotel booking and tourism product booking, taxi booking and car rentals to complement the tour packages apart from a second category of premium services that included SMS and fax alerts and call back facilities.
Most services would be launched within this financial year. IRCTC could add two more numbers to the already existing 139 to distinguish between the categories. Currently, a 139 caller was charged local call charges.
All calls to this server were routed through a local server and attended by call centers in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai.
The 139 service offered information related to PNR status, accommodation availability, train running position, fare queries and accident related information.
The call centers were run by a consortia called Bharat BPO with stakeholders like Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).
It had tie-ups with service providers like Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance and Tata Teleservices.
IRCTC has fixed a threshhold number of calls with the consortia and would get revenue if the number of inbound calls crossed that level. "The service has helped to save costs on enquiry services like putting up and manning an enquiry counter.
It helps to divert the physical traffic to these enquiry stations to the call centers and at the same time adds to the customer's comfort", the official explained. There will be a price premium for the premium services.
The Dial-a-ticket service charge would be Rs2 per minute. IRCTC was working on the revenue sharing model with the consortia. The service would be available on 139 and cash or credit cards could be used to book tickets. While the cash card testing was over, tests were on to make the credit card technology secure.
The Kolkata call center had started with 20,000 calls per day in December 2007 to 80,000 calls per day now, while the call abandon rate was as low as 0.5 per cent. Nationally, nearly 5 lakh calls went to 139 everyday.
The Kolkata call centre could handle 1.6 lakh calls per day. IRCTC did not have immediate plans of scaling up capacity.
