Reimagining Drive-Thru Service with Smarter, Faster Tech
A global food retailer revolutionized drive-thru operations with custom automation technology. Learn how our solution cuts wait time and improves ordering processes, resulting in 45% fewer delays and 90% higher staff productivity while enhancing customer interactions.
The Client
A food and beverage company with an extensive chain of stores worldwide.
The Challenge
The company faced significant inefficiencies in its drive-thru operations caused by long wait times and cumbersome manual processes. Customers experienced delays due to the time required to identify their information, process orders, and handle payments at the drive-thru window. Additionally, the need for customers to manually scan their apps or provide details at the window further slowed down the process, creating frustration and reducing overall satisfaction. These inefficiencies impacted the customer experience and placed unnecessary strain on the staff, who had to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously.
Another key issue was the lack of automation in applying discounts and offers and managing membership card balances. Customers had to manually request discounts or address low balances at the point of payment, leading to longer transaction times and potential errors. This manual intervention delayed the ordering process and diverted the staff’s attention away from their primary role of order fulfillment. The absence of proactive reminders for low membership card balances further compounded the problem, causing last-minute disruptions and inefficiencies at the drive-thru window.
In brief, the company wanted to:
- Reduce wait times at drive-thru
- Improve customer identification and order processing
- Identify low membership card balance issues before checkout
- Automate the application of rewards, discounts, and offers
- Enhance staff productivity
- Improve the customer experience
Share this Document
The Solution
These challenges highlighted a need for a more streamlined and personalized customer experience. The company’s reliance on manual processes and lack of preemptive customer engagement resulted in reduced staff productivity and a suboptimal customer experience. GSPANN addressed these issues through automation, data integration, geofencing applications , and proactive customer engagement. Our unique solution enhanced the company's efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and produced a more seamless drive-thru experience.
Here are a few key highlights to our solution:
- Improved Customer Identification: Our system automatically recognizes customers via geo-fencing and preloads their details to streamline the purchase process.
- Single-Click Order Processing: The new system identifies a specific customer's order history and allows re-ordering of the same item with a single click instead of manually selecting the item, type, size, toppings, and flavors. This enhancement provided a smooth customer experience and enhanced staff productivity.
- Automated the Application of Rewards, Discounts, and Offers: Automatically applying rewards, discounts, and offers to orders reduced wait times and improved accuracy at checkout.
- Addressed Low Membership Card Balance Issues: Proactively reminding customers about low balances before they reached the drive-thru window avoided last-minute disruptions.
- Innovative Retail Solution: The automated system accurately consolidates pertinent customer information in a short period of time by integrating geofencing with loyalty program data.
Business Impact
- 45% Average Reduction in Drive-Thru Wait Times Boosted Customer Satisfaction: Identifying customer information before arrival and preloading details (order history, payment info) reduced the average wait time from 54 seconds to under 30 seconds.
- 90% Reduction in POS Touches Enhanced Productivity: Automating customer identification, payment reminders, and discount application improved staff productivity by reducing the order entry time to one touch—compared to the average nineteen Point of Sale (POS) touches previously seen for each order.
- Improved Customer Experience: Leveraging customer data (order history, favorites, payment info) created a seamless, personalized, and faster drive-thru experience.
Technologies Used
Related Capabilities
Elevate customer loyalty: Personalized rewards drive measurable business growth
Our loyalty program expertise helps businesses implement engaging solutions that drive sales and foster customer relationships. We offer flexible rewards systems, personalized offers, referral programs, engagement tracking, and automated communication to maximize ROI and long-term customer value.
