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: When Jairo Moncada pulled up to the drive-through at Wendy’s in Burbank, Calif., for his usual cheeseburger, fries, and soda, he knew things looked different. There was an extra lane. But the 25-year-old could not see the biggest change: The woman taking his lunch order was sitting 3,000 miles away at a computer terminal in Nashua, and fielding calls from Wendy’s customers at drive-throughs as far away as Florida and Washington, D.C. “I had absolutely no idea I was talking to someone in New Hampshire,” Moncada said. “Our order was ready at the window. It was really quick.” It took a total of 66 seconds.
The Burbank store is one of several Wendy’s restaurants around the country that have been testing the concept . Other fast-food companies, including Burger King, Panda Express, and McDonald’s, have also started routing drive-through calls to remote locations to get faster and more accurate orders and let in-store employees concentrate on making food, keeping the store clean, and ringing up sales.
Restaurants count on the drive-through business for about two-thirds of all sales. Every second counts in the race to deliver food faster. At the Wendy’s stores that use call centers, drive-through transactions are expected to be completed in under 90 seconds.
Already, Wendy’s says the call centre is paying off. Drive-through sales jumped 12 percent at the six stores that installed multiple drive-through lanes that are connected to a call centre, according to Kevin Fritton, executive vice president of 256 Operating Associates, which runs the call center and 14 Wendy’s restaurants in New Hampshire and Vermont.
Customers addressing the speaker at the drive-through order area are connected directly to the computer of a call-centre employee using Internet calling technology. The menu for that store pops on the screen along with the location and any special promotions for that restaurant.The employees are trained to urge customers to add items to their order and are timed on how long each call takes. Call-centre employees then enter the request; it takes 40 milliseconds for the order to get transferred to a screen in the kitchen, where workers make the burgers, fries, and drinks. The cashier at the delivery window then views a screen that captures images of each car and links the order to...
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