Review: Luxury Tour in India, Delhi, Agra, Mumbai, Varanasi, Udaipur, Jaipur

Ask more questions about the guides.  Tell them exactly what we want.  However, this should not be something that requires explanation if the tour agency is of the caliber we expected through Zicasso.

TRAVEL COMPANY COMMENTS:

Dear Ann,

We thank you for submitting review on Zicasso!

It was a pleasure serving you in India!

We are so sorry to learn that you did not enjoy the services of our guides. Please note that the guides who were assigned to your trip have received consistent 5 Star ratings from our previous clients. But, it is unfortunate that they did not meet your expectations. 

When our team spoke with you numerous times during your trip, you never highlighted your issues with the guides. You always said that the trip was going good and you liked the guides and chauffeurs. Had you communicated your expectations better during the trip or before the trip, we would have assigned an Historian for the trip on an accompanying basis (which would have resulted in higher price of the trip)

Incorrect Information: You asked the literacy rate of India to our guide in Agra. He clearly stated that the figure is approximate. Even top CEOs of India would not know the right figure. Also, the guides are expected to know the information about the history and monuments that they show you. The literacy rate, general information is too much for the normal guides and many of the guides would tell you just an approximate figure. If you wished to have an extremely qualified professor/ historian who has better idea of figures, then you should have communicated this requirement to us and we would have arranged an accompanying guide accordingly. Having said that, we have taken the feedback positively and asked the guides to work on facts and figures and improve their General Knowledge

Guide in Jaipur: You had a problem with his style of explaining things to you. He first explained the history/ significance and later asked you to look at a particular piece of monument on your own and click pictures if you wish. You wanted him to accompany you even during the time you went to see a particular piece of monument. Please note that the guide assigned to you is a stalwart in Jaipur and has offered services to dignitaries, top US and UK based travel companies in the past since 1995. You ask anyone in Jaipur in tourism circuit and this person commands a lot of respect. Maybe his style of offering services may not have been liked or found suitable by you but it is your duty to tell him the way in which you would like to go forward with sightseeing. According to guide, you never spoke about this and appeared to be happy. 

The guide also informed you politely that he would not like to be interrupted till he finishes his point as it disturbed his flow of speaking and thought process. This did not mean that he was irritated but his style of offering services is such that he wants the clients to listen to him first and then he was open for questions. But, our local office has further given him instructions of improving the approach of sightseeing and conduct and accompany the clients all the time during sightseeing.  

You did not like the English accent of the Guide in Delhi. Again, we wish to inform that this guide is offering service to us and other premier foreign operators based in UK and US. The other companies including us would have never used his services as English Speaking is the basic factor of us selecting the guides. But, we have informed him to further work on his accent and English speaking abilities. 

Having said the above our team has decided to take following steps:

Steps Taken by Us after this feedback:

1. We have further apprised the guides to improve their knowledge in terms of facts and figures. 
2. The guide in New Delhi, who the client found to be less fluent in English, will not provide assignments to Zicasso clients but offer services to our direct clients. If we do not receive further complaints then we shall bring him back. As shared in previous email, we have received 5 star rating for this guide from all previous Zicasso clients to whom he offered services
3. We shall share a separate “What to Expect” document where we will specifically highlight the issue of “Variance in Guide Quality” and “Guide Experience and Knowledge”. This should take care of expectation gap. If the client wants extremely erudite/ knowledgable guides then that can be arranged only on accompanying basis and will result in higher costs. 

We hope that you offer us an opportunity to design the trip again for you and we assure you that the above steps will result in improved service delivery and better experience

Regards