Why Customers are Ready for Drive-Thru Automation – QSR magazine

Are consumers ready to eliminate all human interaction when visiting restaurants? Quick-service restaurant owners and operators may be surprised to learn that many guests across demographic groups are ready to take this dramatic step, with one specific subgroup expressing a resounding yes! Due in part to COVID-19, what was once considered a far-fetched ideaeliminating human contact when ordering and receiving a quick-service restaurant or fast-casual mealnow appears to be the consumers expectation for the future.

Before exploring consumer sentiment toward automation, however, lets reflect on how we got here.

COVID-19s twists and turns have forced quick-service restaurant owners and operators to rethink customer-facing and operations technologies, pivoting toward reliance on the drive-thru while also embracing more delivery options, investing in automation and reducing human interaction. These advancements proved to be doubly helpful as labor shortages followed quickly on the heels of strict health and safety protocols.

As helpful as initial technology investments have been, surging drive-thru usagewhich has skyrocketed 43 percentsince April 2020has highlighted the value of moving cars through this channel faster, more accurately and more efficiently.

According to a survey conducted online by Harris Pollon behalf of a a global payments company that helps enable commerce for multi-unit restaurant brands, 65 percent of respondents who visited a drive-thru in the preceding six months had an unpleasant experience and attributed it to understaffing (26 percent), long lines (30 percent), poor staff behavior (36 percent) and other reasons.

Demographics and the desire for automation

Nearly half of respondents to the survey said they would be willing to eliminate all human interaction when visiting a quick-service restaurant, assuming orders are received and fulfilled quickly and accurately. The move towards complete automation will take time, but the fact that half of people who visit drive-thrus are ready to eliminate human interaction entirely from the encounter suggests that more people than ever are primed for contactless experiences.

As quick-service restaurant owners and operators assess how to invest capital in 2022, understanding which customers are open to automation can help them make better-informed decisions. Here are six points to help quick-service restaurants further understand their customers:

The reasons people want automation vary widely, driven by concerns about speed of service (42 percent), health (31 percent) and an overall desire to avoid human interaction (32 percent).

The next technology evolution for quick-service restaurants

The desire for increased automation begs the question: What investments can quick-service restaurants make to deliver a more seamless, contactless experience?

Drive-thru vision technology that helps quick-service restaurantoperators better track what is happening in the drive-thru is one game-changing investment that many are beginning to experiment with today. This technology queues cars on the POS for line busting, provides animated visualizations and enables real-time digital menu board interactions. The technology, which trades magnetic ground loops for camera systems, also provides quick-service restaurantstaff with a true picture of drive-thru timing while enhancing the customer journey. Because the video technology tracks cars and orders them throughout the entire experience, digital menu boards can be repurposed for upselling during line busting operations. Better still, the technology can automate two-lane merges and increase transactions.

AI-enabled voice ordering with natural language processors is another technology that is on the eve of widespread adoption. Voice ordering bots can make upsell recommendations, which are displayed on drive-thru digital menu boards. When the customer orders, speech-to-text functionality automatically inserts the order into the POS. (Of course, a real human can interrupt the system at any time if a customer needs assistance.)

These are just a few technology examples that are beginning to gain traction among larger quick-service restaurants. Other areas of interest include kitchen automation, back-office automation and smart employee scheduling to account for new workforce expectations.

The journey to a fully contactless experience

Achieving full automation is a process and many quick-service restaurants are understandably moving in that direction with careful deliberation and intensive pilot programs. Owners will have to make decisions about the right balance between technology and human interaction based on their individual preferences and brand identity. One thing is for sure, however: Consumers and their beloved quick-service restaurantbrands are not moving backwards to the pre-Covid-19 days. The habits they have adopted over the last two years appear to have staying power, and they will continue to get more comfortable with well-executed automated offerings that are easy to use, fast and protect their health and safety.

Chris Siefken, head of technology, Xenial, a Global Payments Company, lives at the cutting edge of innovation, having led the development of consumer-facing technologies for several companies. He currently heads up the teams that make the technology used by recognizable enterprise restaurant brands around the world.

He has roughly 20 years of technology experience and most recently was the CTO at Beanstalk Data building Loyalty and Marketing applications for the quick-service restaurant industry. Chris holds an Applied Philosophy degree in Computer Science from St Andrews University.

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Why Customers are Ready for Drive-Thru Automation - QSR magazine