At Java Detour, in fact, timers are so important they’re placed so even customers can see the seconds ticking away.
“We put it right out there,” says Java Detour CEO Michael Binninger. “Everybody gets to see it.”
The timers flash at the chain’s benchmark time of a minute and a half, giving employees an incentive to beat the clock. And that’s not all: Timers can also be programmed to run with software that provides detailed reports of drive-thru performance, an invaluable tool for management.
Technology has also helped another step in the drive-thru process over the past few years. Credit and debit cards, which are now accepted at most drive-thrus, eliminate the need to count change, but swiping them still takes time.
A faster, though more controversial, alternative is radio-frequency identification (RFID). RFID tags, which can be built directly into credit or debit cards, cell phones, or other “keys,” are picked up by a reader from several feet away, so customers need not even hand over their cards to pay. This method is five to 10 times faster than traditional payment options, says Simon Ellis, program director of supply chain strategies for Manufacturing Insights, a global research and advisory firm.
The problem, however, is that many people are skeptical of the technology due to privacy concerns.
“There’s a bit of mystery about RFID tags that I think time will erase,” Ellis says, citing consumers’ one-time fear of paying by credit card over the Internet as a parallel.
Toll roads, grocery stores, and gas stations are already paving the way for RFID payment, and many say it’s only a matter of time before the technology is widely accepted.
“Where it is used it’s very effective,” Ellis says. “I think you will see significant growth of this over the next five years.”
He suggests that as restaurants are required to replace old card readers due to age and wear, operators will upgrade to RFID.
Build for Speed
Updating technology is a great way to scale down drive-thru times in an existing building, but some of the best time savers are built right in.
LCD order-confirmation screens are becoming the industry norm, and for good reason. They can take as much as six seconds off ordering time by eliminating the need for crew members to verbally repeat an order for confirmation, says Dave Boerlin, vice president of sales for Delphi Display Systems. But that’s not all. They can also take care of upselling, with preprogrammed, daypart-specific promo screens.
Boerlin says that suggestive selling could help increase the ticket price of customers who didn’t initially know what they wanted to order when they arrived at the speaker.
They can even reduce perceived wait times with carefully crafted pitches to entertain customers while they wait.
“An order-confirmation display can help deliver the brand message that otherwise might be missed by a drive-thru customer,” Boerlin says. “So instead of staring at an overflowing dumpster in the parking lot, drive-thru customers become a captive audience for your branding message.”
Order-confirmation displays, which typically have a 15-inch screen, cost between $5,000 and $6,000 to place at a new store, but retrofitting an existing location is usually more expensive, Boerlin says.
While order-confirmation displays are nearing ubiquity in the quick-service world, perhaps the best design principle to increase drive-thru efficiency is still somewhat of a rarity.
Checkers/Rally’s began building restaurants fitted with two drive-thru lanes—one on each side—in the 1990s. The practice is still fairly uncommon, though the design can potentially cut service times in half.