How the best drive-thru operations in the industry make the wheels go ’round.

The reverse tales of speed and accuracy

The two easiest gauges of a drive thru’s health, speed and accuracy remain the two strategies at the top of every operator’s drive-thru manual. And according to this year’s data, the benchmark group continues to post stellar numbers in accuracy. Burger King has the lowest rate with 83 percent accuracy (6.7 percentage points lower than its performance last year), while Chick-fil-A is tops with 92.4 percent. McDonald’s (90.9 percent), Taco Bell (91.2), and Wendy’s (89.9) all improved over 2011.

However, since the high-water mark for speed in a drive thru came courtesy of Wendy’s in 2003 (at an eye-popping 116.2 seconds), speed has tapered off for nearly every brand in the study.

That trend continued this year. Wendy’s is the only brand to improve on its average service time over last year, which it did with gusto by clocking in at an average 129.75 seconds, nearly 16 seconds better than last year. Denny Lynch, senior vice president of communications at Wendy’s, thinks there is always room for operators to improve upon their drive-thru speed. Menu proliferation, he says, is one thing that has possibly driven average service times up over the last several years…

CLICK HERE TO VISIT QSRMAGAZINE.COM AND READ THE FULL ARTICLE