News Briefs

  • 4/17/2023

    Clickatell Announces Chat Commerce Platform as a Service (CCPaaS)

    clickatell

    Clickatell, a pioneer in mobile messaging and Chat Commerce innovation, announced the launch of the world's first Chat Commerce Platform as a Service (CCPaaS) that empowers brands to capitalize on the opportunity of chat commerce, the emerging next wave of digital commerce. This ground-breaking platform enables businesses to seamlessly connect, interact and transact with their customers on the messaging platforms they already use. Clickatell's April 2023 release of the first Chat Commerce Platform as a Service delivers full, authenticated commerce experiences within the most widely adopted mobile messaging environments, such as WhatsApp, Apple Messages, SMS and USSD.

    This next evolution of Clickatell's Chat Commerce Platform allows businesses to create chat commerce experiences that drive sales and increase customer satisfaction. Businesses stay ahead of the conversational commerce trend by conducting commerce in the world's largest messaging apps. Clickatell's CCPaaS also allows businesses to save time and reduce costs by providing relevant, in-context brand experiences and secure payment capabilities to their customers through the convenience of messaging. New platform features include card tokenization and integration with WhatsApp Commerce functionalities that allow the display of product information and images in the brand's WhatsApp channel.

    New Innovative Payments in Chat
    CCPaaS is the first SaaS solution to provide secure payment processing by integrating with leading payment gateways, allowing businesses to efficiently process transactions within the chat interface. With card tokenization, consumers can securely pay via a link in any messaging channel, leading to a Clickatell-hosted checkout that tokenizes the user's payment information and saves it for future use — making subsequent purchases streamlined for the consumer with 'one tap pay.' The platform is PCI-DSS, ISO27001 and SOC2 compliant, ensuring the highest security standards for data protection and privacy.

    "The launch of Clickatell's Chat Commerce Platform as a Service marks a significant milestone in our company's mission to revolutionize customer engagement and facilitate frictionless commerce within messaging apps," said Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder at Clickatell. "We run our lives within messaging apps; whether arranging a lunch with a friend or scheduling a school drop-off, messaging is convenient and simple.

    'Our new platform enables our favorite brands to serve us in these same messaging platforms with a full commerce experience, such as checking into your next flight and paying for a seat upgrade. As the first of its kind, CCPaaS sets a new standard for the future of chat commerce and reinforces Clickatell's pioneering position in the industry. We made history in 2000 when we became the first company to connect the world's fastest growing commerce platform – the internet – with the world's fastest growing communications platform – the mobile phone – via our SMS Gateway. I am proud to see our team continuing the innovation and executing on the vision."  

    Simple CCPaaS Packaging for Customers' Needs
    Clickatell's CCPaaS is offered through three distinct packages:

    • Clickatell Connect  The Communication Package
      Connect is the foundation package that enables businesses to send and receive enterprise-grade mobile messages over multiple messaging channels via a RESTful API or a web-based campaign management tool. This package delivers high-volume services and campaigns, adhering to strict security and compliance requirements, delivering billions of messages reliably to customers all over the world. Key features include high volume queuing and routing, message encryption, anonymous messaging and number management.
    • Clickatell Interact  The Engagement Package
      Adding to Connect, the Interact package enables businesses to have meaningful conversations with their consumers delivering the kind of digital experiences that today's mobile-first consumers have come to expect. Brands can now easily and quickly build messaging workflows to deploy chatbots and mini-apps from a low/no-code web interface. Interact allows an instantaneous response to the customer through a chatbot with powerful features including keyword management, assets library and integrations with leading CRM and OMS solutions. Interact also includes live agent enablement through an advanced web-based application that provides real time sentiment insights, agent assist, chat transfers and agent performance metrics, all designed to improve agent performance and drive better customer experience.
    • Clickatell Transact  The Commerce Package
      Transact enables businesses to sell products and services directly within messaging channels by sending the customer a payment prompt that initiates a secure and simple payment experience. Transact builds on the foundation of Connect and Interact, allowing businesses to create full commerce experiences within messaging. Businesses can accept payments on the Clickatell Platform with no development required, and with secure link and OMS integration, businesses can provide unparalleled check out experiences that are fully cloud native and turnkey. State-of-the-art payment capabilities include tokenization for frictionless user experience, PCI-DSS security and GDPR and local privacy compliance and legacy processes integration.

    "As commerce continues to evolve yet again, we are helping brands to engage with their customers in this emerging chat commerce space," said Jeppe Dorff, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Clickatell. "Our vision has always been to create a chat commerce platform that is focused and built around the key performance metrics that matter most to our customers, performance and operational efficiencies, customer satisfaction and increased business improvements. Our Chat Commerce Platform as a Service not only achieves that vision, it also provides an unparalleled user experience for both brands and their consumers, while fostering digital transformation and in context communications with the click of a button. With our innovative low/no-code platform, businesses may rapidly implement and customize their chat commerce solutions, regardless of technical expertise."

    To address this emerging chat commerce opportunity, Clickatell's CCPaaS includes several powerful features designed to transform customer engagement into delightful commerce experiences and drive brand loyalty:

    • Customizable chatbots: Capabilities to develop and deploy chatbots to automate conversations, handle customer inquiries and drive sales.
    • Live agent chat: Smooth escalation from chatbots to live agents, enabling brands to offer personalized and efficient customer support when needed. Live agents can access conversation history and customer information for a seamless transition and enhanced customer experience.
    • Real-time analytics and reporting: Access to valuable insights into customer behavior, chatbot performance and transaction data, enabling data-driven decisions and optimization of chat commerce strategies.
    • Easy integration with existing systems: A point and click embedded solution for seamless integration with CRM, ERP and other business systems. The platform comes pre-integrated with popular solutions like Shopify, Zendesk and Salesforce, ensuring a faster time to market for businesses.
    • Embedded payments: Embedding payments into chat allows brands to engage in transactional commerce as easy as a reply to pay. The feature comes with a secure link, hosted order pages, check out with Order Management integrations and a rich user experience in available channels.
  • 4/1/2023

    QSR Automations Recognized for Excellence in Customer Service

    QSR Automations customer service team

    QSR Automations earned recognition for excellence in customer service and support.

    At MURTEC, QSR Automations’ VP of Hardware Solutions and Support, Kathi Klein, received fHospitality Technology ’s 2023 Top Women in Technology Lifetime Achievement Award. 

    During her more than 30 years in the restaurant technology industry – half of those at QSR Automations–Klein has amassed incomparable knowledge in understanding and troubleshooting kitchen display, front-of-house, and the associated hardware and networking platforms needed to run them. 

    But what truly sets Klein apart is her natural ability to nurture relationships and foster talent, which has made her an effective leader in QSR Automations’ Support Services Team. During her long tenure at QSR Automations, Klein has built one of the industry’s strongest and most effective support teams. In fact, under Klein’s guidance, the team has received a 99 percent satisfaction rate from customers in 2021, and last year handled more than 16,000 inbound and outbound calls, which earned them a bronze award for Excellence in Customer Service from the 2022 Stevie Awards. 

    This was the third bronze Stevie award for the team, as last fall, Klein accepted two additional bronze awards from the Stevie Women in Business Awards on behalf of QSR Automations–one for excellence in customer service, and the other for growth. QSR Automations was selected for these honors from more than 1,500 nominations from around the world.

    “Just as our technology is the heart of a restaurant kitchen, our people are truly the heart of this business,” said Angela Leet, CEO of QSR Automations. “My colleagues are passionate about innovation both in and out of the office, and it’s immensely gratifying to see them recognized for these achievements.”

    QSR Automations, headquartered in Louisville, Ky., with offices in the United Kingdom, is a global industry leader in kitchen automation and guest management services.

  • 2/6/2023

    Salad and Go Expands in Texas

    Salad and Go  salad and iced tea

    Up and coming QSR  Salad and Go  is expanding in Texas with three new locations opening in February in the Houston markets of Katy, Richmond and League City.

    The Katy store located opened February 1, the Richmond location at  is set to open February 17, and the League City store plans to open its doors on February 22. These new locations will mark the start of rapid brand expansion across the Greater Houston area.

    These suburbs were strategically selected as ideal markets for Salad and Go as some of the fastest growing communities in the region. Conveniently located in some of Houston's most popular suburbs, the new locations will provide fresh, high-quality meals with quick and easy convenience at an affordable price.

    As Salad and Go continues growing its national presence with a strong focus on Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Nevada, the brand's expansive growth has it on a positive trajectory to provide fresh and affordable food to communities in more than 125 locations by the end of 2023. Houston is the next step in the brand's expansion across Texas with plans to open additional stores in the market throughout the new year.

    Salad and Go's chef-curated menu provides guests with food for any time of the day by offering a variety of delicious and healthy items including salads, wraps, breakfast burritos and soup as well as beverages including hand-crafted lemonades, teas and cold brew coffees.

    Salad and Go ensures each meal contains fresh, quality ingredients while keeping prices low by vertically integrating operations and distribution, and sourcing ingredients directly from high-quality local farmers and suppliers whenever possible. The brand's mission to make fresh, nutritious food convenient and affordable for ALL extends beyond its stores and is demonstrated in the work the brand does to donate 4,000 meals every week to those in need, as well as in partnerships with nonprofits to support and fundraise for various worthy causes.

  • 4/17/2023

    sweetgreen Shares Progress on ESG Goals

    sweetgreen sustainability report cover man in field

    sweetgreen released its first 2022 Impact Report, detailing the company’s ongoing initiatives to build a sustainable food system and responsible business.

    The report highlights sweetgreen’s Fiscal Year 2022 progress towards their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals, including their commitments to becoming carbon neutral by 2027 and broadening workforce representation across all levels by the end of 2025.

    Sustainability Matters

    Sustainability matters to today's consumers and restaurant operators. Two out of three (66%) consumers surveyed feel it’s important that restaurants are open about their practices to limit food waste. According to the National Restaurant Association’s annual What’s Hot Culinary Forecast, sustainability will continue to influence menus and how restaurants make decisions.   Just last week, Chipotle revealed its new sustainable restaurant design.

    sweetgreen's Progress

    •  Together with  Watershed, sweetgreen calculated the emissions of their menu items and published the emissions data and methodology on their website.
    • Introducing carbon-friendly items: The Hummus Crunch Salad at 0.3 kg CO2e is their lowest carbon meal to date.
    • Reducing emissions intensity: Since announcing its commitment to becoming carbon neutral in February 2021, sweetgreen has decreased emissions intensity by 12% from their 2019 baseline while maintaining company growth.
    • Investing in clean energy: 100% of operations are powered by clean electricity purchased from solar farms in North Carolina certified by Watershed, reducing their Scope 2 emissions to zero.
    • Mitigating environmental impacts: 79% of waste was composted or recycled based on restaurants where their partner, Rubicon, manages landfill, compost, and recycling streams.

     

  • 4/17/2023

    The Other House Empowers Customer Experience with Sage Intacct and Percipient

    sage intacct logo

    Business software consultancy, Percipient, announced that hospitality start-up, The Other House, has deployed Sage Intacct. As well as providing intelligence to support the customer experience, track profitability, and expedite operational processes, the platform will facilitate greater transparency around energy consumption and costs, while scaling to support ambitious growth plans for the company. 

    The Other House initially used Xero for its accounting needs. However, as it geared up to launch, the executive team needed a platform which would integrate with all key systems, deliver high-level business insights, and support the lifestyle brand’s plans to open 15 sites in the next few years. Having conducted an extensive review process, The Other House selected Sage Intacct based on the fact it was the best system on the market and could efficiently integrate with other best-in-class systems.

    Now live, The Other House is benefitting from automation across the entire business. Because of the impressive integration via APIs, business users can view pretty much anything via an easy-to-navigate dashboard, daily, weekly, monthly, or by any other configuration they choose. This unprecedented level of speed and intelligence means that the team is able to distil key data in minutes rather than days.

    “Crucially, Sage Intacct can be used by anyone, not just finance, which promotes transparency and allows intelligence to be applied where relevant,” comments Tom Haley, CFO at The Other House. “Our quarter-end accounts are produced at a click of a button and we are able to plot and compare any insight we need to create a comprehensive picture, so that when viewing, say, profit and loss, we can look at the numerous variables associated with that. Sage Intacct delivers truly end-to-end finance, but in reality, it does so much more than that. It allows us to have a high-level business conversation based on statistical insights, which in turn, give us an in-depth understanding and control of our numbers in real-time.”

     

    “Digital is, without doubt, a crucial aspect of any modern hospitality business, and we see it as a competitive advantage. While our app will play a significant role in helping to deliver the Resident experience, it’s all of the intelligence generated in the back office, powered by Sage Intacct, which ultimately delivers the magic.”

     

  • 4/17/2023

    New Attensi Whitepaper Reveals Leadership Delta Is Largest Challenge Facing Hospitality

    attensi logo

    Attensi, a global training tech provider, launched a new insight paper, 'The Leadership Delta: How challenging the norm is helping the hospitality & retail industry to train exceptional leaders.' The paper reveals three of the most common and fundamental leadership ‘deltas,’ which they believe are the most difficult to solve using traditional training methods.

    Frontline organizations in the hospitality & retail sector have had to face big challenges head on over the last three years, from global shut down to high consumer demand and financial crisis. But according to Attensi, one of the biggest challenges facing the industry is the ‘leadership delta’.

    What does Attensi mean by leadership delta?

    A leadership delta is a vast gap in knowledge and capability that is exposed when individual contributors are promoted into senior roles where they have responsibility for overseeing multiple areas of the business. One of the reasons this happens is because many of those leading teams within the sector are promoted because they are great at their ‘day job’ -- they are amazing baristas, superstar bar tenders or fantastic store assistants -- but now they find themselves with a new set of expectations and responsibilities. The step up is a giant skills leap. With so much responsibility at the hands of these leaders, Attensi is challenging the industry to look at how leaders are trained within the sector and asking the question: Are you challenging training tradition to develop exceptional leaders and beat the leadership delta?

    With a global outlook, the whitepaper identifies three key leadership ‘deltas’ the sector should address:

    • Coaching for performance
    • Having difficult conversations
    • Effectively communicating culture

    Greg Hull SVP Commercial Operations US and Global Head of Hospitality & Leisure, said: “In this paper we explore the leadership delta in detail and discuss how organizations can challenge traditional learning methods to give leaders the opportunity to drive performance and become exceptional.

    “For every frontline organization, fighting against a backdrop of challenges, understanding and addressing the ‘leadership delta’ in their organization and defining the skills gap they need to close to set leaders up for success is now critical for sustained success.

    “There are key takeaways that every organization can take from the learnings of these global organizations, firstly to take the time to better understand the real-life impact and effectiveness of your training, secondly to explore how your team feel about your approach to training and its effectiveness for them as individuals and finally to rethink and reimagine your approach to traditional leadership training. Learning strategies must continuously evolve.”

    To find out more, download Attensi’s whitepaper: Whitepaper | Hospitality Industry | Attensi

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