Ditching email for hassle-free collaboration
ixigo, operating under Le Travenues Technology Limited, is a technology company focused on empowering Indian travellers to plan, book and manage their trips across rail, air, buses and hotels. ixigo assists travellers in making smarter travel decisions by leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science-led innovations.
Slack connects its teams and tech stack, helping make both the customer and employee experience better.
A market leader in India for 16 years, ixigo says it’s ahead of the curve in the region on the adoption of smart solutions like Slack. “We were one of the first companies to use Slack in India,” says Nupur Jain, Group Vice President of People and Culture at ixigo.
“Our Co-founder, Rajnish Kumar, pushed for Slack. He believed in the power of the platform so much that he wanted to get rid of emails altogether, eventually.”
We were one of the first companies to use Slack in India.
Making work easier with Slack
Serving millions of customers every day through its apps and website, ixigo knows that even the smallest customer pain point and any little issue can be a big deal. Fixing problems fast is key. ixigo uses an in-house anomaly detection platform to make highly detailed booking predictions. In case there is a glitch, using Slack Integrations, the platform alerts the right people immediately so any problem can be checked quickly.
Smart integrations like this help make Slack a favourite at ixigo. It’s become an intelligent productivity platform, connecting tools, people and workflows across the business.
“As an organisation like ours grows, we need more tools to address new challenges,” Nupur says. ixigo now integrates an impressive 249 different applications through Slack. “Whether it is an internally developed tool or from another technology vendor, we’ve made sure they can be integrated into Slack.”
Teams working better together
ixigo is built on a productive and seamless way of working, Nupur says. “ixigo’s success starts with a great employee experience,” she says.
“One of the biggest priorities of my role is to make the day-to-day experience of the people at ixigo hassle-free, which means seamless communication and collaboration with each other,” she says.
According to “ixi-gems,” a term ixigo employees use to refer to themselves internally, that’s exactly what they’re getting with Slack, giving the company an impressive 83% NPS score on its choice of collaboration tools. “Slack was one of the highest-performing tools in our tech stack. People are super happy using the platform,” Nupur says.
Slack helps teams to connect anytime with Slack Channels—flexible spaces for all the people, tools and files needed to get work done—by providing a shared view of the work being done. “Slack enables our employees to collaborate asynchronously,” Nupur says. Everyone is empowered to use Slack channels to flag items needing attention, regardless of the time of day, to make sure urgent issues get the attention they need.
The ixigo team finds Slack intuitive and easy to use, and that’s helping the email-free dream for the business come true, Nupur says. “Slack’s just part of our daily routine now. Even after receiving an email, we find ourselves going on Slack instead to respond and follow up,” she says.
“Slack just comes naturally to us at ixigo. It’s so well-integrated in how we operate that it makes communicating so much easier.”
“Slack was one of the highest performing tools in our tech stack. People are super happy using the platform.”
Speaking the same language with Slack
Until 2020, ixigo operated with a compact team of 140 dedicated members. That changed in 2021 following the acquisition of two companies: Hyderabad-based online bus-ticketing platform, AbhiBus and Bangalore-based train ticket waitlist prediction and booking platform, Confirmtkt.
Slack has been crucial in bringing the three companies together and getting them working together as one team, Nupur says. Slack was new to AbhiBus, but has played a big role in bringing it into the ixigo family. “Slack is helping us solve many of our collaboration and communication challenges,” she says.
“We have cross-team channels now. There are new projects where both teams are collaborating, so you’ll have project-specific channels.”
Slack has even helped ixigo and AbhiBus bridge India’s traditional north-south divide. “During our hack-week challenge, Slack played a pivotal role in uniting teams across ixigo and AbhiBus, facilitating seamless communication, breaking down geographical barriers and showcasing the collaborative spirit of our diverse teams, resulting in a successful event,” Nupur says.
A Slack-powered future
ixigo’s journey with Slack started with a vision to replace email, and with Slack powering productive collaboration across the company, it’s a goal that looks increasingly in reach.
Looking ahead, ixigo has plans to automate more of its workflows with Slack, as well as explore the potential of generative AI and other emerging technologies.
Slack has been crucial in unifying ixigo’s team, finding shared values, and making work simpler by providing access to nearly 250 apps in one place. It all helps make Slack what Nupur calls ixigo’s ‘virtual office’.
“Bringing together everyone to a single platform is extremely important, especially with the changing workplace,” she says. [#]
