Dallas-based startup Conversable has added a major grocer and international pizza chain to its list of clients, and partnered with two global companies just one month after launching.
Conversable, which uses chatbots to help companies automatically interact with consumers across messaging channels, announced that it’s added Plano-based Pizza Hut and Austin-based Whole Foods to its list of paying customers. Conversable launched with Dallas-based Wingstop as its first client. The news comes just days after the startup partnered with EY and Booz Allen Hamilton in the last few days.
“The pace of growth is great and surpassing our initial forecast,” said CEO Ben Lamm, who’s currently in San Francisco debuting the new partnerships at MobileBeat 2016. “I am excited about where we are, how fast we are growing, and continually energized by our market leading position in the space.”
Pizza Hut plans to use Conversable to allow customers to order their favorite pizzas on Facebook Messenger and Twitter. The technology allows Pizza Hut to keep track of customers’ favorites or saved orders from any U.S. location and reorder those items with help from its social media chatbots, which respond to requests in real-time. Customers can also get answers to frequently asked questions, and information about deals and promotions.
Whole Foods will use a Facebook chatbot to help with recipe exploration and discovery. Customers can search for keywords, discover new recipes with emojis, and explore by special diet categories.
Meanwhile, EY announced its plans to invest in the creation of services as it relates to conversational commerce, or the ability for consumers to interact with businesses in real time via messaging platforms. IT’s working with companies like Conversable as it trains 150 of its professionals on conversational commerce. Booze Allen Hamilton similarly has partnered with the Dallas startup to explore the use of chatbots to extend customer care and content.
Conversable, led by Lamm and Chief Product Officer Andrew Busey, uses a software-as-a-service model to generate revenue and also provides business process outsourcing consulting and system integration services. Lamm did not release revenue details.
“Our strategy is simple: be the enterprise platform for automation through messaging,” Lamm said.
Lamm moved to Dallas after selling Austin-based Chaotic Moon to Accenture. He also recently sold Austin-based Team Chaos to San Francisco gaming company Zynga. Busey was a partner in both of those companies.
