Taking the sting out of waiting in the Drive-Thru Lane
There’s a reason so many QSR customers prefer to order food from their cars and not get out of their vehicles to eat, and that’s because they’re in a hurry. But by the same token, they’re not willing to sacrifice getting exactly the food they want for the sake of speed. Technology is the driving force behind making everything in our world faster and easier. Unfortunately, with features being updated so quickly and with people’s available time seemingly at zero, it makes it hard to keep up. Combine that with less conventional elements like digital menu boards and in-car communications. So one of your top priorities as a QSR manager is to ensure the best possible communication between your clients and your staff.
It won’t be easy to establish great communication between the customer in their car and the order taker in your kitchen. You know how stressed your staff are in the kitchen, and you can well imagine your customer’s world, with a wagon full of noisy, hungry children and a million other things to attend to as you try to figure out what everyone wants and then convey the results to your order taker. That’s why an echo-cancelling and noise-canceling electronic communication system is a must, as well as full duplex, so both ends can talk and listen at the same time. This is not a place to skimp! No self-service menu board is complete without its communication system. Make sure you and your client can be easily heard. Remember that the typical QSR earns more than two-thirds of its revenue in the ever-critical drive-thru lane.
Accuracy may be even more important than speed, according to most recent major market research studies in the field. In fact, it’s a common customer perception that part of the cause of his waiting in line is the belief, whether correct or not, that his burger or burrito is being prepared from scratch for him. The inference here is that if a customer is going to have to wait, most of the waiting period should occur after they place their order, not before.
And of course, nothing takes the pain out of waiting quite like some entertaining entertainment, which is easy to provide if you’re using direct access digital menu boards. With a modern system, it’s easy to reserve some of the board’s real estate for cartoons, local sports, or whatever else to entertain your hungry customers for just a few minutes, until the whole gang joins in.
