QSR October 2022

DRIVE - THRU REPORT

implemented new solutions like Pickup Window Timer Leaderboards, which rank the restaurants within a district or area on their service time achievements; and optimized

niable one. As you go down through Intouch Insight’s dive into how many vehicles were in line at drive-thrus, the num bers start to f lip. Chick-f il-A begins at the bottom—only 11 percent of the time a driver pulled up were there no cars ahead—and rockets into its own stratosphere at the f ive car mark. There, shoppers saw five vehicles lined up nearly 11 percent of the time. The closest brand was McDonald’s and Burger King at 4 percent. The most telling stat, however, is the 10-plus cars metric. There, Intouch Insight data discovered lines of that length and longer 16 percent of the time at Chick-fil-A. McDon ald’s followed at 2 percent, while Arby’s and Wendy’s each notched 1 percent. Everybody else was at zero. The average cars in line went as follows: Chick-fil-A, 5.45; Chick-f il-A’s drive-thrus were “slower” because they were busier. There were more cars for shop pers to get through. And this goes far beyond anec dotes. According to filings, of the chain’s 1,836 U.S. freestanding restaurants outside of malls last year (those open and operated for at least a full calendar year, from a total of 2,023), average annual sales vol umes were $8.142 million, with 849 of those, or 46 percent, producing figures at or above. One operator pushed $17.16 million. For perspective, if you put Outback and Cracker Barrel together, you’d be at $7.92 million. Matt Abercrombie, Chick-fil-A’s senior director of service SPEED OF SERV I CE AVERAGE SERVICE TIME (SECONDS) Taco Bell 221.99 Dunkin’ 238.16 KFC 239.02 Arby’s 261.19 Burger King 266.68 Hardee’s 272.10 Wendy’s 275.84 Carl’s Jr. 289.36 McDonald’s 291.30 Chick-fil-A 325.47 McDonald’s, 3.13; Wen dy’s, 2.67; Arby’s, 2.28; Burger King, 2.19; Taco Bell, 2.17; Dunkin’, 2.11; KFC, 1.8; Hardee’s, 1.64; and Carl’s Jr. 1.63. The notion is clear-cut:

bagging procedures where new kitchen video screens offer a clear and ref lec tive breakdown of drive-thru, mobile, and register orders to help employees accurately fulfill requests. And it’s coming to l i fe from the ground up. Wendy’s unveiled a new tra ditional build in mid-August that’s going to be its future-forward design standard, called Global Next Gen. There’s a dedi cated drive-thru window to help delivery partners pick up orders and an optimized kitchen layout orientation designed to boost eff iciency through touchpoints. Dedicated mobile order and delivery parking, and mobile order pickup shelv ing, finish the model. “We still focus on car counts and speed of service, but accuracy and taste of food as well as overall customer satis faction and likelihood to return are also crucial indicators,” Ajmani says.

ORDER ACCURACY Was your drive-thru order filled correctly and completely (including special request)? PERCENT Arby’s 89.60 % McDonald’s 89.00 % Burger King 86.90 % Carl’s Jr 86.20 % Hardee’s 85.40 % Taco Bell 83.80 % Chick-fil-A 83.00 % KFC 82.60 % Dunkin’ 81.80 % Wendy’s 79.40 %

LET’S TALK MORE ABOUT SPEED Chick-fil-A’s performance in the QSR ® Drive-Thru Report has become a yearly

practice of juxtaposition, and one that bespeaks broader trends. The brand lagged the field in average service time at 325.47 seconds, according to Intouch Insight’s Annual Drive-Thru Study, which serves as the data portion of this year’s report, based on store audits (see below). Taco Bell paced the pack at 221.99 seconds. Both have become famil iar results. But calling Chick-f il-A the country’s “slowest” drive-thru falls well short on context, as customer sentiment backs. The chain was given a 93 percent for speed of service satisfaction, per the survey, which trailed only Arby’s (96 per cent). So if it is, indeed, “slow,” guests don’t seem to agree. It boils down to a few realities. The first is a stark, unde

METHODOLOGY:

of shops were late afternoon (1:31 p.m.–4 p.m.); 29 percent of shops were dinner (4:01 p.m. –7 p.m.); and orders consisted of a main item, side, drink, and special request Intouch Insight’s leadership team has hands-on experience partnering with the top quick-serve restaurant brands to collect and centralize data from multiple customer touch points, giving them actionable, real-time insights in an advanced analytics platform. Founded in 1992, Intouch is trusted by over 300 of North America’s most-loved brands for their CX, customer survey, mobile forms, mystery shopping, and operational and compliance audit solutions. For more information, visit www.intouchinsight.com. For the consumer survey portion of the QSR ® Drive-Thru Report, The FoodserviceResults team, in partnership with QSR magazine conducted a comprehensive, nationally representative survey of

drive-thru consumers in the U.S. using an online survey sample in July 2022. This research included tracking questions and compara tive data from the 2021 and 2020 studies, as well as new questions about post-pandemic operations, technology and other key areas of interest. Leveraging insights from numerous industry experts and secondary research, the finalized survey was completed by 1,010 drive-thru consumers during fieldwork. To ensure a relevant re spondent base was achieved, all participants were screened to only include those who had at least one drive-thru occasion in the last 30 days. An extensive cross tabulation of the respondent sample data was conducted in order to identify major trends, demographic/be havioral themes and other nuances in the data. Following analysis of all data, this report was developed to communicate key findings and important data from the study.

Intouch Insight is a CX solutions company, specializing in helping multi-location businesses achieve operational excellence so they can exceed customer expectations, strengthen brand reputation and improve financial performance. The 2022 version of Intouch Insight’s Annual Drive-Thru Study included 1,537 completed shops from June until end of July across 10 Brands: Arby’s—174 shops (11 percent) ; Burger King—168 shops (11 percent) ; Carl’s Jr.—87 shops ( 6 percent ) ; Chick-fil-A—174 shops (11 percent) ; Dunkin’—170 shops (11 percent) ; Hardee’s—89 shops ( 6 percent ) ; KFC—167 shops (11 percent) ; McDonald’s—165 (11 percent); Taco Bell 173 shops (11 percent) ; Wendy’s—170 shops (11 percent) . Nine percent of shops were breakfast (5 a.m.–10:29 a.m. ); 49 percent of shops were lunch (10:30 a.m. –1:30 p.m. ); 12 percent

ICON IMAGES: ADOBE STOCK / KORNKUN (2)

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OCTOBER 2022 | QSR | www.qsrmagazine.com