At BistroChat, co-founder and COO Alexandre Sonier and his team are serving modern chatbot solutions to address traditional dining frustrations
Leaving his home country of France to work in the United States and then mainland China, Alexandre Sonier’s had lain entirely in the realm of software engineering rather than fine dining. But during his time working in the tech hub of Shenzhen, Sonier met Hacene Taibi and then connected him to Xavier Besnault, who was an old university mate. The trio began furiously sharing ideas, hoping to land upon a startup that could “make a change in the world”.
Spoiler: they succeeded—in 2018, they started BistroChat in Hong Kong. Today, it is not only a popular table booking tool, but also a fully integrated chatbot, customer relationship management, loyalty scheme and affiliate marketing platform for food and beverage providers.
In 2022, the company expanded to Singapore and has plans to move into Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia.
In his own words, Sonier explains how dining can be made better with a pinch more information and a dollop of innovation.
What I love about Hong Kong is you can find any cuisine you want. The dining scene is very vibrant; there is so much happening. The Covid times were harsh for everybody, especially F&B businesses; we’re very happy to see that many of them persevered and survived the pandemic.
My co-founder Hacene Taibi faced an issue when friends or family wanted to dine at the restaurant he co-owned. They were reaching out to him—not the restaurant—directly through WeChat, asking to save tables, and it was getting out of control. From that, we saw people were naturally leaning towards using convenient ways to reach out to businesses and we thought chat could be a nice innovation to bring to restaurants.
Read more: Tealive founder Bryan Loo opens new facility to produce and export bubble tea ingredients
In Hong Kong, there is a big French community, with many of them in F&B or finance. That was the first tiny market that we addressed. It was easy for us to reach out and get their feedback on the initial version of the product. Having this idea of disruption led us to merge the best of both worlds—food and tech.
More and more people are going to use chat to interact with businesses, rather than by email, or even calling. Lots of people hate calling people! Chat is much more convenient. It’s synchronous. You can use it whenever you want. It’s at the tip of your finger on your phone.
Now what we offer to restaurants is plugging an AI into the chat, so it can automatically answer common guest questions: “What are your opening hours? Where is your restaurant located? Can I bring my dog? Do you have a highchair for my baby? Can you write ‘Happy birthday’ on the dessert plate?” It’s great for guests who want to make sure they’ll have the best experience possible.
See more honourees from the Food & Beverage category on the Gen.T List.