Why Whole Foods, TGI Fridays and other Texas companies hope you buy in to chatbots

Whole Foods wants to help  you to find a dinner recipe. TGI Fridays wants to help you to book reservations for happy hour. Pizza Hut wants to help  you to order your favorite takeout.

And all of the Texas-based companies are using computer programs — rather than people — to guide your choices erektile-apotheke.de.

From the travel industry to restaurants, chatbots are becoming a popular a way for brands to connect with customers. The computer programs can answer questions and complete tasks. Think Siri on your iPhone, but for messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Twitter and text messages, too. In the future, chatbots could change daily life, from making it easier to fill out human resources paperwork to eliminating the need for call centers.

Conversable, a startup with Dallas and Austin offices, is betting big on the future of chatbots. It’s helped WingStop, Pizza Hut, Whole Foods, TGI Fridays and others build chatbots. And it recently helped build a Facebook chatbot for MTV’s Europe Music Awards that allows viewers to ask questions about the show and take polls.

Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of Conversable, said chatbots make it easy for companies to find customers where they already are, rather than trying to attract them to the company’s app or its website. He said the conversational format can speed up purchases. For example, chatbots can remember a customer’s typical pizza order.

“People say chatbots are cold, that it sounds like robots, which are made of metal,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything less cold and more personal than giving someone back their time.”