Conversable and Olo partner to re-invent the working lunch on Messenger, Twitter, and Kik

Conversable and Olo have partnered to help restaurants offer food-ordering bots to office workers — and those of us who often say, “Let’s order in” — using chat and messaging applications. The offering aims to help brands reach people at work via popular communications platforms like Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and Kik.

Conversable has made a splash in recent months by building bots for brands like Wingstop, Whole Foods, and Pizza Hut. Olo, meanwhile, is a longtime mobile ordering company. Together they can help restaurants offer live menus, manage item availability, and secure online payment without customers having to bounce between apps and sites.

“We see customers spending more time in messaging apps,” said Marty Hahnfeld, Olo’s chief commercial officer, in a prepared statement. “The integration with Conversable manages to pull all of these gritty parts of a digital transaction into something that feels very natural to the customer.”

Most telling is that the Conversable and Olo integration will enable social ordering, whereby a group of people can decide who’s eating what and when. Slack’s Lunch Train button provides this feature, letting anyone easily start a lunch plan that coworkers can join by clicking a button.

Above: Slack’s Lunch Train button helps co-workers organize group lunches with one click.

Image Credit: Screenshot/Slack

But whereas Lunch Train is suited for groups of employees heading out for say, Tex-Mex or salads, the Conversable-Olo offering will help restaurants better serve those taking a working lunch.