SaffronStays, started in 2014, by husband-wife duo, Deven and Tejas Parulekar is a chain of 200+ luxury staycation villas across the country—complete with caretakers, local cooks, and concierge services to deliver the perfect escape!
As a new-age destination resort chain, Saffron Stays aimed to use tech to win customer love. However, while their guest experience was polished, the backend operations told a different story. In 2019, the organisation was dealing with large deposits in cash, outdated payment methods, and operational headaches, making payment processing a 3-person job, and far from smooth. To truly evolve into a tech-first company, they needed to bridge these gaps with streamlined, tech-powered solutions.
“I’ve got an engineering background but ended up in Strategic Partnerships, and when I joined SaffronStays, I immediately noticed a tech gap. Even something as simple as payment confirmation was unreliable. For instance, our previous payment system occasionally failed to confirm bookings in real-time. This often led to manual intervention, causing delays and potential errors. So, the tech keeda in me was like, ‘This needs fixing!’” says Sarang Purandare, Chief Technology Officer
And that’s exactly what they did, bringing Razorpay on board to simplify their payment journeys both for customers, as well as the staff at Saffron Stays.
Villa Bookings Lost in Transaction
Vacationers looking to book a SaffronStays villa often faced hurdles from the moment they tried to make a booking online. The payment process to pre-book a villa took more than 10 seconds to process and frequently failed to confirm bookings, leaving customers confused and frustrated. Due to these issues, the payments team at SaffronStays had to manually verify each transaction and update customers on the status. If a booking didn’t go through, the team would send a manual payment link and input the payment amount themselves—an error-prone process that could lead to inaccuracies.
Razorpay helped bring down the TAT for every transaction by 80%. The payment journey, which once took a frustrating 10 seconds, now clocks in at under 2 seconds.
Since the majority of customers paid using cards, Razorpay’s Token HQ, Native OTP and CVV-less flow ensured smooth and reliable checkouts, boosting payment success rates by 1.6%.
Using Dynamic Routing, Razorpay’s UPI Stack significantly minimized payment failures, contributing to a remarkable 2% increase in success rates, bringing the overall payment success rates to an impressive 77%.
With a well-documented integration process, a comprehensive API catalog, and a well-designed dashboard, Razorpay offered SaffronStays a solution that surpassed their previous systems.
Cash Deposits: Turning Check-ins and Check-outs Into a Chaos
With deposits collected in cash, trust was always hanging in the balance. Guests often found themselves in a tricky spot, carrying large sums of cash to make the deposit. While villa bookings were prepaid, many still preferred paying the deposit upon check-in for peace of mind. However, most properties were located in remote areas where ATMs were hard to come by, adding to the inconvenience.
Cash deposits were more than just a hassle for guests. For the on-ground operations team, the process of collecting cash, notifying the finance team, counting the money, and managing piles of paperwork to track it all was overwhelming. And then, returning the deposit at checkout—only after confirming with the finance team—turned into a multi-step process. It was a logistical nightmare!
To tackle this, they embraced UPI Apps to collect deposits, but a new challenge emerged: Refunds! Typically, it took two days to return those deposits, and let’s face it—no guest wants to leave with just memories and no deposit refund.
SaffronStays Stepped into a New Era of Deposit Collection
At Saffron Stays, cash deposits became a thing of the past with the integration of Razorpay’s UPI and Card solutions. With Razorpay Payment Links, they could send payment requests for bookings or deposits directly to guests, streamlining the entire process.
Integrating Razorpay’s payment solutions with their internal operations app streamlined their workflow, showcasing the flexibility and user-friendliness of Razorpay’s offerings. Now, less than 10% of deposits are collected in cash.
The Instant Refund feature ensured that deposits were returned at the time of checkout, making the guest experience seamless.
Vacations begin long before the first suitcase is packed; they start with the excitement of planning and the thrill of finding the perfect getaway. And in the midst of that, comes the payment journey which is just as essential. For SaffronStays, crafting unforgettable experiences means ensuring every detail, including payments, is as relaxing as the stay itself. With Razorpay managing the payment process, the team can focus on what they do best—creating memorable homestays that leave guests with nothing but joy and cherished memories.
