Olo, Conversable Bring Conversational Commerce to the Restaurant Industry

Olo and Conversable Inc., two SaaS platforms, said they partnered to enable social ordering using chat and messenger applications for the restaurant industry. The integration will allow customers to place orders using popular messenger applications while pulling in live menu and item availability. Customers are given a link to complete payment on a secure server where they can quickly check out with an existing account or as a guest.

The collaboration will benefit restaurant brands and customers alike in many ways, including:

• Convenience: Deliver great service to customers in messaging apps where they are already spending the majority of their time, with no need to bounce between apps or sites.

• Integration: Customers see live menu and item availability and orders are injected directly into popular POS systems to streamline operations for the kitchen.

• Security: Payment is processed on a private and secure PCI Level 1 compliant server. In-store payment is also available if brands opt to enable it.

The technology first debuted in June when Wingstop, with more than 900 locations worldwide, launched social ordering on both Twitter and Facebook Messenger. Through the dual-platform conversational technology, Wingstop fans are able to start an order, customize it to include choices from across Wingstop’s full menu, enjoy easy check-out and get pick-up notifications without ever leaving their social channel of choice.

The Conversable-Olo integration is platform-agnostic, allowing brands to create conversational commerce experiences on the channels that resonate with their customers such as Facebook Messenger, Twitter and Kik. Digital interactions are becoming smarter and customers are spending more time in messaging apps. The integration manages to pull all of these gritty parts of a digital transaction into something that feels very natural to the customer.