Fab Find: TalkTo App Is A Free Assistant

A lot of people think that in order to save time they need to completely reorganize their schedule or give up doing one thing to make time to do another. What most people don’t realize, though, is how much time is wasted each week on hold with a customer service rep, searching for your size at the shoe store, and figuring out if the convenience store down the street sells your favorite paper soap.  Add that up over the course of a week or a month, and suddenly you’ll realize that you do have time to clean your apartment or take a yoga class.

Ideally, we’d all have personal assistants (or virtual assistants) to complete these tasks and answer our questions for us. Now there’s an app that can do the next best thing! TalkTo is my FabFind because what good is something fabulous if you don’t share it.  It’s an app that lets you text any business in the United States and ask them a question. It’s convenient and helpful, and that’s why it’s my Fab Find this week, because what good are fabulous things if you don’t share them?

1. Find out if an item is in stock. Sometimes, the perfect gift for your loved one is also the perfect gift for every loved one in NYC. If a gift is worth it (and also out of stock online), I’ve been known to search several stores to find one who has it in stock. With TalkTo, I can text local stores and find out which one has what I’m looking for. In some cases, stores will even let you put items on hold.

2. Make appointments. Never sit on hold with a receptionist again. Appointments can be made quickly and easily using TalkTo. Go ahead – feel rich and famous while you let the app schedule your next haircut, spa treatment, or yoga class.

3. Reserve a table. You can make, change, or cancel all of your dinner reservations with TalkTo. Text your restaurant of choice when you’d like to eat, and spend the time you would have on the phone perusing the menu ahead of time or planning the perfect dinner-date outfit!

4. Find company hours. On the website for my favorite sushi restaurant it says that they are open daily until 11 pm. When I got there Saturday at 3:30 pm, I discovered they were technically “closed” for a break between lunch and dinner. Had I asked the app, I would have saved the time it took me to get all the way there (not to mention the disappointment of knowing I was not getting any sushi).

5. Compare prices. Need to replace your iPhone charger but don’t know the cheapest place to find one nearby? Text a few local tech stores asking for their prices and sit back while you wait for the lowest bid. It feels good to shop smart in the 21st century!

I’ve used the app to find out if Best Buy had a gift I wanted to buy my husband, to change a dinner reservation, and to find out what time a bank closed. My requests were responded to in as quickly as 15 minutes, though some took up to 2 hours. Don’t let the time discourage you from using the app – the convenience of TalkTo comes from the fact that you can put in a request and forget about it.  When you think of a question — just ask TalkTo to take care of it.  Plain and simple — the possibilities are endless!