One of the great innovations in the QSR drive-thru lane in recent years has been mobile ordering. With this innovation, customers order their food in advance, through their smartphones, before they even arrive at your premises.
Mobile Ordering has the potential to be a real game changer. No troublesome, error-prone verbal communication with your staff. No cash handling, as the app has access to the customer’s debit card, and payment is coordinated between the app and your POS system.
The problems start when your customer arrives, taste buds aglow and belly grumbling, awaiting the first encounter with that delicious cheeseburger, or perhaps a burrito special that she’s ordered. That’s because some QSRs, even after investing in all this wonderful technology, still only have only one line. So, even if Ms. Customer has ordered ahead, she still has to wait in the same line as everyone else, to wit, all your other customers who are still studying your drive-thru digital menu boards, deciding on what they’d like to order.
She does save some time online, specifically, the time that she herself would have spent perusing your drive-thru displays for the perfect repast. But she still could end up stuck behind a bus full of foreign tourists, unfamiliar with your menu, and each one of them insisting on her own separate check for the small coke she finally deigns to order. What you end up with is a very frustrated, disappointed mobile app user.
A specific pickup point for mobile customers is the solution. The pickup point could be alerted to the mobile app customer’s presence by a Bluetooth signal originating from the customer’s smartphone when she approaches. In this manner, the pickup point doesn’t even have to be continuously manned by a member of your staff.
Creating the app, publicizing and distributing to your customers, and installing the other technological underpinnings of its operation will not be inexpensive. But, it will be a big draw for today’s QSR customer, born, bred and addicted to technology as he is. But, if it is to really save time for your time-limited customer, a separate pickup point will be absolutely essential.
Origin Display Group | originmenuboards.com | origindigitalsignage.com | 888-235-2579
Gary Elinoff
