As Americans become more obsessed with convenience and saving time, many use drive-thrus more regularly and expect their orders to be filled quickly, accurately and with a smile. For their part, operators are stepping up efforts to exceed carborne customers’ expectations.
With drive-thru transactions accounting for up to 66 percent of sales for those chains that have a lot of them, operators constantly strive to make the experience as good as it is for customers dining inside.
Operators are working hard to overcome such continuing shortcomings as order inaccuracy, slow-moving lines of cars, overcomplicated menu boards, inconvenient packaging, and unfriendly or hard-to-understand order takers.
Some of the largest quick-service chains have had efficient systems in place for many years, but even they continue to test new upgrades. Some Wendy’s and McDonald’s franchisees, for example, have tested off-site call centers to see if they result in faster and friendlier service. They and many competitors have installed timers to measure whether actual service times are as fast as preset goals, and some are testing hand-held ordering devices during peak periods.
While speed obviously is a primary consideration, since it can result in more transactions and higher profits, other factors may be more important to many customers. Recent surveys have shown that most consumers rank order accuracy higher than any other service aspect.
The 2007 Technomic Takeout Consumer Trend Report contained the following most-important factors as rated in order of priority: accurate order, 31 percent; food taste, 24 percent; convenient location, 14 percent; food at right temperature, 12 percent; and speed, 7 percent. Considerations that ranked 4 percent or lower were high-quality packaging, convenience, friendly service, and inclusion of needed utensils, sauces and napkins.
Kevin Higar, a senior manager for the Chicago-based consulting firm Technomic Inc., recently emphasized that takeout and drive-thrus must fit into consumers’ lifestyles to be successful.
“Think about how to make the customer feel as special as they do at full-service restaurants,” he told attendees this summer at the Technomic 2008 Trends and Directions seminar.
New technology has enabled drive-thru operators to measure performance more closely. Since adopting a new diagnostic tool last year, Dairy Queen found that timeliness goals set for DQ Grill & Chill units were reached 86 percent of the time, compared with 52 percent a year earlier, said Roger Brewin, DQ’s director of concept support services.
The chain’s new tool helped operators set a list of 10 priorities, post goals and reward crew members for meeting them.
During the busiest times, Dairy Queen has been able to serve 70 cars in an hour, which allows it to compete against its largest rivals, Brewin said. The chain also has had success with “touch and go” credit card readers installed outside of the drive-thru windows.
“Transactions below $20 don’t need signatures,” he said. “We are starting to see some great results.”
Dairy Queen also recently finished the rollout of a new picture-based menu board that Brewin said is “a lot easier to read than the old ones.”
Other chains have various new menu board options in test markets. Nashville, Tenn.-based Captain D’s Seafood Kitchen, for instance, has initiated ongoing tests of menu formats “to find that magic one,” said Sandy Smith, senior vice president of marketing for the 600-unit chain.
“We have a complex menu, so it’s a continual challenge,” Smith said.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Bojangles is nearing a systemwide rollout to its 400-plus-unit chain of a new menu board, which spokesman Randy Poindexter described as more clean-looking and easier to read with improved food photography. The new design has improved transaction speed because customers can find more quickly the items they want to order, he explained.
The new boards also have been consistently placed at the same distance from the pick-up window at all company units, he said, declining to share more specific information.
“Bojangles has always had a very strong drive-thru business because of breakfast,” Poindexter said.
Its drive-thru hours are 5:30 a.m. to midnight at company stores, with some franchisees in the chain’s 11-state area opting for earlier closing times.
In developing a tool to help operators get the most profitable results from their menu design, Coca-Cola FoodService’s Menu Source program has set out to help redesign menu boards to better organize items by category. One of the newer innovations is sliding menu board panels that change between breakfast and lunch.
“It’s standard practice to universally promote combo meals,” said Irma Shrivastava, group director of chain marketing for Coca-Cola FoodService. “It makes for ease of ordering to put combo meals up front,” she said, underscoring that those bundled orders are the most profitable.
Drive-thru customers who don’t want a combo meal must read further or sometimes won’t see à la carte items listed until they reach a second menu board. However, regular drive-thru users often know what they will order even before they arrive at the drive-thru.
“Big Fat Deals,” as Fatburger’s value meals are called, are promoted first on menu boards, but à la carte items also are highly visible, said Andrew Wiederhorn, chairman of the 98-unit, Santa Monica, Calif.-based chain. About 15 percent of Fatburger’s units have drive-thrus, but that percentage is expected to increase as the chain expands.
“We are less concerned about rushing customers through the experience,” Wiederhorn said, adding that the chain emphasizes made-to-order choices.
Most drive-thru customers probably don’t mind waiting five to six minutes and appreciate the convenience of not having to get out of their cars, he said.
Several other chains have set aside specially designated parking areas where customers ordering large and more time-consuming orders may wait in their cars while their orders are filled and runners deliver them. Quick-service chains that do this include White Castle and Portillo’s.
“Sometimes we get pretty big orders for between 30 and 60 burgers,” said Jamie Richardson, spokesman for 413-unit White Castle, based in Columbus, Ohio. “We direct them to our Crave Zone parking area, and we bring the food out to them.”
Portillo’s, a 34-unit sandwich chain that opened its first drive-thru in 1982, goes a step further than most competitors by sending order takers, equipped with headsets, out to cars when lines are long, in all kinds of weather.
“Long lines don’t impress me unless they move fast,” said Dick Portillo, owner of the Oak Brook, Ill.-based chain, who said it’s not uncommon to have up to 30 cars in line at lunch time.
Crew members are offered bonuses in inclement weather to work outside and are given snowmobile suits in frigid weather, rain gear during downpours, and sunscreen and lemonade in summer.
“A lot of our people like going outside,” Portillo said.
Culver’s Franchising System is another chain that is planning to test outside order-taking at high-volume times, said Chris Contino, spokesman for the 383-unit chain based in Prairie du Sac, Wis. That is one of several initiatives Culver’s is just starting to test.
“We’ve put added emphasis on the drive-thru,” Contino said. “It’s never-ending as the bar continues to rise in the quick-service industry. We have an opportunity to continue to serve our guests faster and to provide the experience they would enjoy in the restaurant as well.
“Our concept started as a drive-in, so we understand how the guest wants their experience to be in the car, whether they are texting or eating in the car or in the office.”
Hand-held ordering devices have received mixed reviews from operators who have tested them. A Wendy’s franchisee in Lexington, Ky., has discontinued the test but could not be reached for comment. Wendy’s corporate office also did not return calls seeking comment on the tests.
Burgerville, a 39-unit chain in Vancouver, Wash., has experimented with the devices, but Jack Graves, its chief cultural officer, said the chain has not seen any evidence that they decreased service times.
“Speed is very important,” said Tami Skillingstad, vice president of training and development for Arby’s. “Perceptions have changed. It’s not only about speed but more about accuracy and hospitality.”
Arby’s has placed more focus on the drive-thru as time-pressed consumers have used it more. Ongoing training reinforces that focus and offers incentives to crew members who meet goals.
“A good percentage of franchisees use the program,” Skillingstad said. “We try to keep it energized.”
Providing hospitality along with speedy service often depends on hiring the right people for the drive-thru and giving them solid training, she said. The training extends beyond the drive-up window to fry cooks and other team members who must work together.
Details such as setting up condiments the same way every time require cooperation “through the whole back-of-the-house,” Skillingstad said.
The growing number of quick-service employees whose first language is Spanish or another language poses even more challenges for delivering quality drive-thru service, since transactions over a speaker are depersonalized. Heavily accented English often is difficult for English speakers to understand.
“Acknowledging that this is a problem is important,” said Jill Bishop, president of Workforce Language Services in Chicago.
She advises restaurant owners to work with employees on workplace-specific vocabulary and pronunciation. Employers either can hire a language trainer or do it themselves with low-cost tools such as voice recorders to help employees listen to proper pronunciation and practice it. Employers “have to be committed” to doing that, Bishop said.
One chain that’s fairly new to drive-thrus, Tropical Smoothie Cafe of Destin, Fla., is finding that units with drive-thrus are doing about 60 percent of their sales there and are increasing unit volumes, said Mike Rotondo, the 270-unit chain’s vice president of operations. Plans call for about half of all new units to have drive-thrus.
“That’s a big opportunity for us,” Rotondo said. “Those locations are tough to get, but they have good success.”
Tropical Smoothie Cafe was reluctant at first to do drive-thrus because its specialty beverages, wraps and sandwiches are made to order. However, transaction times usually take no more than a minute longer than at more conventional quick-service concepts, he said.
“It’s all about accuracy and quality,” Rotondo said. “Customers would rather that it take an extra 30 seconds and make sure they’ve got the right order.”
Although most drive-thru customers consume their meals somewhere other than in their cars, many quick-service operators are improving takeout packaging to make “dashboard dining” easier, along with creating more hand-held menu items. In addition, more packaging is being designed to fit into car cup holders.
So far, however, few if any operators have copied an old but up-to-date idea originated by Irvine, Calif.-based In-N-Out Burger. Drive-thru workers at that iconic chain provide lap mats to dashboard diners who request them.
