How quiet chairs at hairdressers and Whatsapp booking services are helping us to skip the small talk

From WhatsApp to restaurant bookings to laundry lockers, new services are helping us skip the small talk, says Rachael Sigee
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Rachael Sigee10 December 2015

It's an irritating fact of life in London that despite our best efforts to keep ourselves to ourselves, communicating only via the odd grunt to get past someone on the Tube, we do occasionally have to talk to each other.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the no-bookings craze took off so spectacularly in the capital is that we’d prefer to just show up, hand-signal how many people are in our group and be seated without having to utter a sound.

About the last thing a Londoner in 2015 is going to do is actually make a phone call. Unless it’s an emergency. And possibly not even then. But online restaurant booking forms can be a hellish rabbit hole of clumsy interfaces, crashing pages and error messages.

Thankfully now, you can just send a quick WhatsApp message. Pidgin restaurant in Hackney actually lets you do this. No more engaged ringtones, no more conversations with someone yelling over a noisy lunch service and no more spelling your name out phonetically.

Margot Tyson, restaurant manager at Pidgin says: “Someone got in touch with us from abroad and suggested that WhatsApp would be a good way to do bookings so we gave it a go. It’s quick, easy and everything is written down. If people are stuck in meetings and can’t make a phone call, they can still do it.”

It’s the latest sign that businesses are realising their customers don’t crave attention or smalltalk so much as sweet, sweet silence. And as we’re all glued to our phones and conditioned to have digital conversations, customer service that circumvents human interaction is becoming the holy grail. And the urge to hit mute is even spreading beyond the capital. Last week a hair salon in Cardiff introduced a “quiet chair” for customers who would prefer not to navigate the usual holiday chat.

Back in London, Mayfair start-up Velocity asks only that you mention to your waiter on arrival to a restaurant that you’re using the app. Then you watch as your bill tots up in real time (presumably pretty handy to kerb any over-enthusiastic ordering) and at the end of the meal, pay straight away and head off into the night. They are partnered with hundreds of restaurants in London, including Hix and Lima, to help you dine and dash without a single awkward interaction when a waiter doesn’t seem to understand the internationally recognised hand signal for “the bill, please”. Wahaca QuickPay does the same, just requiring you to enter a table number into the app before splitting the bill with friends.

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But it’s not just eating out that tech is turning into a human-free experience.There are abundant laundry and dry-cleaning collection services available in the city but they still require that moment on the doorstep or office where (god forbid) you might have to make eye contact or mumble a “thanks” to the person clutching your shirts. A service called Pinglocker has streamlined this transaction even further. You simply bag up your dirty laundry and leave it one of the company’s designated lockers (currently in more than 30 buildings in London) then place your order by text. The next interaction is an alert to pick up your freshly laundered clothes.

Of course, saving on chat means also saving on time, and extra minutes are the ultimate currency in the capital. Pinglocker co-founder Stephen Brady points out that removing the human element also allows people to operate on their own timetables, saying: “Most orders are placed late in the evening or early in the morning when traditional dry cleaners are typically closed.”

Operating on our own schedule, at any time of day and without hearing a single human voice? We are moving far beyond the self service checkout.

Heads down, earphones in Londoners — we’re all sitting in the quiet carriage now.

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