Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) has signed a two year agreement with Idea Cellular for an automated refill booking service for its Indane LPG gas customers. As part of the agreement, IOCL is using Idea Cellular's LPG booking solution "Smart Gas" for rolling out this initiative. Smart Gas is a part of the telco's enterprise business solutions which offers an end-to-end technology-based booking and billing system to LPG companies. Idea Cellular mentions that this service will allow Indane customers to book an LPG cylinder via a text message or IVR (Interactive voice response) round-the-clock. It will also apparently offer IVR and SMS-based delivery status updates to consumers, thereby skipping the need for them to visit the distributor‘s outlet for refills. The telco claims that this solution reduces the inefficiencies and possible malpractices at the distributor's end by reducing their role only to refill LPG deliveries. The service is currently available in 45 cities including Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Patna among others and the company plans to progressively roll it out pan-India in the next three months. How It works? Every circle has been given an unique Idea number (You can view the full list of numbers here). Consumers can dial in the number from their landline or mobile phone and follow the IVR instructions to book the refill cylinder. Following this, consumers will receive a booking confirmation text message along with the reference number. Alternatively, consumers can also send a text message "IOC < STD Code + Distributor's Tel. Number > < Consumer Number >" to the unique Idea number to book refills and simply…
