Today, after toying with the idea for a while, I decided to experiment with outsourcing my life. Having already had favorable experiences with offshoring work, I figured it was worth it to see if these task-oriented outsourcing operations really would work out.
The first impressions are favorable!
I decided to test two outsourcing operations. One is for personal tasks and the other is for more technical applications. I’ll talk about the personal tasks first… I had read in “The 4 Hour Workweek” about how these organizations can save you time and money by performing mundane tasks for you. The author recommended an outfit called “GetFriday.com”. Doing my web research I found that even the author himself later retracted that recommendation – the success of his book in fact created so much business that GetFriday couldn’t keep up! Doing more research I found a group called AskSunday.com. Ask Sunday was created by an American (I believe his background is an MBA at Wharton), and it focuses purely on personal tasks – bill payment, shopping, travel reservations. So I began my test with a simple task:
Please go to TripAdvisor.com and research the top hotels in Reyjkavik, Iceland. See which hotels are available from 12/28 to 1/1/09 and report back with pricing and details.
Now, perhaps you guys want me to report here that they failed to get the task done. BUT, they didn’t – in about 15 minutes I had a list of availability at all of the hotels in Reyjkavik in order of their ranking on TripAdvisor. Sweet!!!!
So, having been impressed with that, I decided to do another test:
Call American Express Business Gold Card Services and ask why my card expires in 10 days and I have still received no replacement. If there are any issues, patch me in at 973.xxx.xxxx
So…. I’m sure your first thought is: did you give your card number? Well, yes I did. And why not – they already have it anyway. Gotta take chances on these things… So within 20 minutes of this task being submitted, I received a call from a 212 area code phone number. My personal assistant was on the line and had run into trouble with the American Express replacement card center, so he was going to patch me through. The entire thing was done in 2 minutes. I’d say, what I accomplished not sitting on hold for 15 minutes was worth the 2 bucks I paid for the task. Even better, at the end of the entire task I was sent an email:
Hi Peter,
Per your request, I contacted American Express at 800-xxx-xxxx. I spoke to
Marcy from card replacement department and was informed that she needs to
speak with the card holder directly in order to provide any information,
so I conferenced the call with you at 973 xxx xxxx.Thanks and regards,
Brian xxxxxxx
Sunday LLC | 410 Park Avenue, NYC 10022
http://www.asksunday.com
Negatives? Sure, there were a few. I had wanted the Hilton in Reykjavik and whatever tool they used didn’t show it as available. I double checked Hilton.com and it is open – but only at Hilton.com. So, I can’t fault them that most other reservation systems did report it was full. And my phone call with Amex was clearly over some VOIP connection that was questionable – I gave Amex my callback number and they dialed me back within 30 seconds to complete the call.
So… overall, I’m impressed. I have to make calls to Citibank, Comcast and Verizon and I plan to get these guys involved to queue them up for me. Perhaps setup car service to JFK… The possibilities are endless!
Tomorrow, I’ll update you on my technical outsourcing experiments. Stay tuned!
