Snapfinger, a provider in remote web and mobile ordering and pre-payment services for the restaurant industry, announced the creation of the “Extended Drive Thru” (EDT) remote ordering application, specifically designed for the quick-serve industry. This patent pending application features a mobile pre-order function that will essentially extend a quick serve’s drive thru by allowing customers to order and pay via mobile device prior to arrival. This technology will help to ease the bounds and limitations of a physical drive thru by adding a virtual component. 

With the EDT mobile application, guests can submit their order and pre-pay, at which time the order is placed into a “held state” within the mobile application. Once the mobile device crosses a pre-defined geographic boundary, as identified via real-time geo location technology, the order is released from the mobile device into the POS system of the selected quick serve for fulfillment and pick-up. Each quick serve has the ability to set its geo fence based on several business rules or parameters specific to that location’s unique characteristics. These parameters include ideal distance based on drive-up or walk-up traffic patterns as well as time of day, day of week, and size of order. 

“[Quick-serve] guests will find this application easy and convenient because they can save their favorite order on their phone app for future and quick reorder,” says Jim Garrett, CEO of Snapfinger. “Imagine a busy parent in the car-pool lane, trying to get the kids to soccer practice, being able to pre-order and pay for the kids without missing a beat. Or the student or business person pressed for time between classes or a meeting who needs an even quicker option than today’s quick serves.”

Snapfinger will initially offer this feature exclusively to quick-serve concepts that serve Coca-Cola products. Coke has a long standing, exclusive marketing relationship with Snapfinger, in order to ensure its restaurant partners have first access to the most advanced self-service mobile and web remote ordering solutions. “This could revolutionize the quick-serve industry as we know it today considering the physical limitations of traditional single-lane [quick-serve] drive-thru operations,” says Chris Lowe, president of Coca Cola Foodservice. 

“This application will also be used by many of our casual dining restaurant partners to notify the restaurant of guest arrival for curb side pick-up,” Garrett says. “We are currently in the initial stages of discussion with several major quick-serve concepts, and look forward to announcing those partners as they are secured before the end of the year.”