Butlers of the Information Age

The service Ask Sunday charges a monthly fee to perform routine tasks for subscribers.  For example, you might ask them (by e-mail, phone, fax, or website) to make a reservation at a particular restaurant, or to call local stores to find where a particular product is in stock.  Really, you can ask for anything that can be completed in 20 to 30 minutes.  Other suggestions from their site:

Update/Cancel Subscriptions: Figure out how to update the mailing address for my Business Week subscription.

Phone-in Purchases: Call J.Crew and order me the Cotton cable crewneck sweater in faded black.

Administrative: Contact American Airlines and see that I get frequent flyer credit for my flight last week. I forgot to add my AAdvantage number at the airport.

Lost Luggage: I just landed in Dubai from Emirates flight EK202 and my luggage didn’t turn up. Please contact the lost luggage department and help me track it down.

Store Hours: How late is the Crate and Barrel open on West North Avenue in Chicago?

It’s an interesting idea.  Each small task we need to do takes only a few minutes, but collectively those tasks can take hours.  Sunday’s basic plan costs $37 per month for up to 15 requests, so if each request takes 20 minutes you’re valuing your time at or above $7.40 per hour.

I’m not about to subscribe, but services like this make our world interesting.

One thought on “Butlers of the Information Age

  1. just pixels says:

    It’s a meta-service based on the all-too-common experience the other company’s “service” is too hard to use. In contrast, I called the company that delivers heating oil. The person who answered recognized my name and knew my address. That may not seem remarkable — after oil companies are known for their down-home folksiness — but I was struck by the immediacy of speaking to someone who could help me. Perhaps Disney could create an attraction (i.e. “ride”) with that experience at its center. Call it “YesterdayLand”.

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