Aayush Arya is a student from India and regular contributor for 
Don’t you just love it when local Indian companies take on a challenging task with the aim of making life easier for the denizens of this country and carry it out with the utmost level of perfection? I certainly do. And Just Dial, “India’s No. 1 local search engine”, is a perfect example of just such a company.
Go to their website and locate your city from their list, enter what kind of business you want to search for and, voila, the results are there! And the best part is that it works almost flawlessly. And the list of cities they cover is truly astounding. Not only do they even have Siliguri in their database, they can actually give you the phone numbers, timings, prices and addresses of 33 restaurants in the city. I didn’t know Siliguri had 33 restaurants in the first place!
The best way to use Just Dial is to call them at 69999999 (though I have no idea which cities it works in; I do know that 011-22222222 works for Delhi and NCR) and just lob any question about the city at them. Wanna know which south Indian restaurant in your immediate vicinity does home deliveries? You got it. Need to find a 24/7 fast food outlet at 2:30 AM? They’ve got you covered. Wanna know where in your city is the best place to stage a violent strike? Well, this one might pose a bit of a problem (maybe not if you live in Kolkata though).
Also, the waiting times are, for the most part, non-existent. They literally answer calls before the first ring goes through. And on those occasions when you have to wait, it’s usually only for a few seconds. Since there are actual human beings to answer every question on the other end of the line, you always get the right answer even if you have trouble framing your question or aren’t sure whether the kind of data you want is in their database or not.
And you know what the best part is? It’s all free! Free as in free beer. Well, except for the standard fare of placing the call, but I’m sure you won’t mind that expense for what you get. As soon as you ask a question, they immediately send you the answer via text message so that you don’t have to bother with a pen and paper or try to remember stuff. It’s all just so well thought out and efficiently implemented that I’m baffled and awestruck by the sheer genius of it.
What makes me a little scared about the future prospects of this service, however, is that they do not seem to have a business model. I have no idea how they are making money, if any—there are no advertisements involved anywhere, the call you place is billed at your standard outgoing rate, all of their services are free (including the text messages) and they don’t even spam you with promotions or any of that nonsense. So how are they making money?
In any case, however, what you need to take away from here is that Just Dial is one of the best examples of an Indian company doing things right and the best way for you to thank them would be to use their services. So the next time you want to find out where the nearest petrol pump is, stop asking strangers, pick up the phone and just dial.
-Aayush
