Four innovations for reducing drive-through delay

Four innovations for reducing drive-through delay
By Glen Bowker
July 13, 2012

If your restaurant is in the quick-service category, chances are that “quick” is taking on new meaning when it comes to the demands of time-starved consumers.

Restaurateurs in the highly competitive foodservice industry have had to balance many shifting priorities and concerns over the years. Successful operators have come to understand the bottom line that says to stay competitive they must ultimately cater to the wants and needs of their customers. Many of those customers are opting for the convenience of drive-through, especially when they are in a rush to get to work or don’t want to endure the -30C temperatures to get a cup of coffee or a quick meal. Other customers may have a physical impairment or young children in the car, making the drive-through a much-appreciated service.

So how do drive-through foodservice operators, whose main goal is to sell more coffee, sandwiches, fries and salads, create a compatible customer experience focused on faster, more convenient service? Fortunately, through the use of technology, your brand can offer new options to speed up the drive-through. Here are a few concepts:

Payment: Several brands have instituted their own brand of payment cards that allow consumers to “charge-up” their payment card on line. When it comes time to pay, customers simply swipe and pay to close out their transaction, eliminating the time required to fumble through a purse or change dish in the car. Service is speedy for the customer, and the five people waiting behind them. (Subtract eight seconds.)

The payment processors have also stepped up by offering faster connections to their processing stations and new contactless debit/credit readers. What used to take 10 to 15 seconds for approval has been reduced to less than five seconds.

Payment innovation

Starbucks has taken the payment model to a whole new level of innovation. Not only have they eliminated the fumble for change, but they have also taken the plastic cards out of the landfill. With the touch of your phone, your e-payment card is read by a digital imager at the speed of light. The Starbucks payment app can be found on iTunes and the Android market.

Time-motion is a subject for which many restaurants have spent millions. Optimizing in-store operations and communications technologies to service the drive-through is an exact science that has been nearly mastered by a few companies. Equipment positioning, multi-radio systems, and staff organization are all leveraged to increase production and reduce waiting times in peak periods. Ordering: Ordering is also a place to shave off time in the drive-through process. Several companies are piloting in-store self-order kiosks and line busting technology in the hope that these tools will compel customers to come into the store rather than wait in a drive-through line-up. If the customer believes the in-store experience can be faster with a self-service model in the store, they may forego the drive-through lines altogether, weather and personal mobility permitting. There’s an app for that: Companies like Enterprise Mobilization and Snapfinger have taken ordering to the consumer smartphone. By mobilizing the menu in a “brand-able” app, customers create and save their favourite orders on their smartphone home screens for re-use. Enterprise Mobilization has a patented process that displays that order as a QR code on the smartphone screen. Again the order is read by an imager on the drive-through speaker, eliminating all the redundant talk-time and inaccuracies of speaker ordering. (Subtract 20 seconds.) Menuation: POS providers can help you to customize your POS for the drive-through. Perhaps you have noticed that a large coffee with cream and sugar is the most common order placed at drive-through while combos sell more in the store. In an effort to remove time-consuming key-touches, your POS provider can create shortcut items for your most commonly ordered items and strategically position them to be accessible from every menu page. We have merely skimmed the surface of what can be done to streamline drive-through operations because every format is different: by menu, POS package, staffing challenges, physical store layout, and available real estate. Innovation and striving for excellence will ultimately deliver the results that both consumers and operators are looking for. See also: About the author Glen Bowker has a passion for applying the latest enterprise mobility technology to optimize business results. His career includes experience with wireless carriers, wireless application providers, mobility hardware manufacturers, and wireless internet portals. He welcomes comments, dialog, and questions at: [email protected].

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