At Goibibo, we always strive to make the experience of travel booking — simpler, smoother and faster for our users. Earlier last week, we have introduced a new way for our user authentication — ‘Login with Whatsapp’. This first-of-its-kind Whatsapp login authentication will help our mobile web users to login without needing to remember the password, keying in OTP or Mobile Number — rendering a seamless experience to the users.
The Problem Statement
Every day, lakhs of users go through the tedious login authentication process. Currently, users can login through Mobile number followed by Password or OTP. Alternatively, they can login using their Facebook or Email accounts. In all these processes, the following questions are always at the back of user’s mind
- ‘What is my password? I don’t remember the password I set’
- ‘I haven’t received my OTP yet. How do I login?’
- ‘Is my personal data shared if I login through Facebook?’
- ‘Is my data secure enough?’
We looked back and thought — Is there a simpler way to login while keeping it fast and also removes this kind of questions from user’s mind.
The Idea
Login on Goibibo is totally mobile number driven. So why not use the ubiquitous platform — Whatsapp? The idea is to make the workflow completely user-initiated while keeping it private, as the user has full control of writing to us over or not on Whatsapp.
The workflow
‘Login with Whatsapp’ mode of authentication is a seamless and frictionless experience for the user.
- No more using your keyboard to input the Mobile Number or OTP or Password
- It just takes 2-taps to login
- Super smooth and no data privacy issue (like Facebook or Google)
Impact
· Currently, ~1000 users daily are using login with Whatsapp on our mWeb platform
· 93% of the customers who sent a message to Goibibo have logged-in after receiving the link (The drop off for OTPs is ~17%)
The Learnings
While developing the workflow, one of the use case that struck our mind was that this simplifies the Mobile number login authentication for International numbers where the OTP costs are generally high. As a lot of expats book through Goibibo, this came as a really good solution for a mundane problem.
The Road Ahead
We are soon launching the ‘Login with Whatsapp’ feature of Android and iOS.
Kudos to the amazing team which made this possible in a short span — Tushar Kanti, Navneet Kumar, Alwin Babu, Bhoomit Vasani, Preetika & Shamik
Want to try it right now? Log-on to https://www.goibibo.com/ from your Mobile browser and Sign-in
Introducing ‘Login with Whatsapp’ on Goibibo was originally published in Backstage on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
