In one of the closest races in recent years, Rally’s came all the way from a 9^th place finish in 2004 to upset the three-time defending drive-thru champs at Chick-Fil-A.  Rally’s improved in every category of the study from its 2004 finish, but top five finishes in both the order accuracy and speed of service categories fueled its rise to the top.  Those two categories typically drive the overall winner, while the menuboard appearance and speaker clarity categories generally act as tiebreakers.  Rally’s shaved just over two seconds off of its average service time from 2004, which inched the chain up one spot in the rankings to 5^th.  The big move, however, came from order accuracy.  Rally’s improved its percentage of accurate orders from 88.1% in 2004 to 94.3% in 2005, which resulted in a move from 13^th to 3^rd in that category.  Top that off with a move from 12^th to 9^th in menuboard appearance, and from 19^th to 9^th in speaker clarity, and you have a new drive-thru king for 2005. 

Chick-Fil-A, which finished as the 2^nd place overall brand this year, again won the speaker clarity category and did not finish below 6^th in any of the remaining three categories.  As a matter of fact, Chick-Fil-A’s 2005 composite score of 20.4 would actually have placed the chain ahead of the 2004 2^nd place finisher, Wendy’s, had it not been for the remarkable efforts at Rally’s.  Chick-Fil-A maintained its 5^th place spot on service speed, and finished 3^rd on menuboard appearance.  Order accuracy, however, proved to be the difference, as a mere 1% decrease in order accuracy resulted in a drop from 1^st to 6^th in that category.

3^rd place finisher, Krystal Burger, improved one place from 4^th in 2004.  The move for Krystal is interesting, as it actually added over 27 seconds to average service times, which resulted in drop from 8^th to 14^th in that category, but in the process improved its order accuracy percentage to 95.5% from 90.2% in 2004.  The improvement in order accuracy was enough to land Krystal in the top spot for that category, up from 7^th in 2004.  A slight improvement in speaker clarity from 89.6% in 2004 to 91% in 2005 allowed Krystal to move from 17^th to 14^th.  Despite a slight improvement in menuboard appearance (97.7% in 2004 to 98.5% in 2005), Krystal fell one place in the rankings to 4^th this year in the category. 

Rounding out the top five for 2005, A&W improved to 4^th from 10^th and Del Taco improved one place from 6^th to 5^th.  A&W’s move is primarily the result of strong performance in both speed and accuracy.  Despite a slight improvement from 92.5% accurate in 2004 to 92.8% accurate in 2005, A&W fell from 3^rd to 7^th in this category.  In speed of service, however, A&W cut over 24 seconds off of average service time to finish 10^th this year.  Del Taco also performed well in order accuracy, by finishing 5^th with 93.7% of orders delivered accurately.  As was the case with A&W, Del Taco fell in the order accuracy rankings, despite improvement in actual performance.  Del Taco maintained its 2^nd place menuboard appearance ranking, and improved speaker clarity from 9^th to 3^rd.

Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC, and Checker’s complete the 2005 top ten QSR chains.  Checker’s was the only top ten chain in 2005 that was not also a top ten performer in 2004.  Wendy’s, which had finished in the top three every year since its fourth place finish the initial year of the study in 1997, fell to 7^th place this year. 

Although Wendy’s again led all brands in service speed, it fell all the way to 21^st in order accuracy.  The gap between Wendy’s and competitors on service speed is closing quickly.  Checker’s, which also finished in 2^nd place to Wendy’s in service speed last year, is now only three tenths of a second behind Wendy’s pace.  Interestingly, Wendy’s order accuracy percentage actually continued a three-year trend of improvement, climbing to 88.9% in 2005 from 88.3% last year and 86.2% in 2003.  The challenge for Wendy’s comes from the fact that other chains are improving faster, as illustrated by its 11^th place 2004 finish in order accuracy versus the 21^st place finish this year. 

Last year’s 3^rd place finisher, Taco Bell, also remained in the top ten, but fell to 8^th overall this year.  Although Taco Bell maintained its 3^rd place finish in service speed, despite a five-second increase in its average, it fell to 16^th in order accuracy from 9^th in 2004.  Similar to Wendy’s experience, Taco Bell also improved its percentage of accurate orders in 2005 over 2004, from 89.2% to 91.5%. 
Several brands fell in the order accuracy rankings, despite actual improvements in performance.  Burger King improved from 88.2% to 91.7%, only to fall three places from 12^th to 15^th in the category.  McDonald’s improvement in accuracy from 85.6% last year to 86% this year did nothing but land the nation’s largest QSR chain in dead last for order accuracy.  It has become apparent over the past several years that a relatively small change in a chain’s order accuracy percentage can translate into a big move in the rankings.  One reason for this change can be attributed to the category of accuracy, where we have recently seen the most consistent overall improvement in QSR performance on a national level.  As recently as 2001, the national average for accurate orders was 81.5%, while this year’s average is 91.3% - a remarkable overall improvement during a five-year span.  QSR operators around the nation will be quick to embrace the end of the comedic jabs at the stereotypical drive-thru experience of bungled communications with the order taker and inaccurate orders. 

There are several contributors to the continued accuracy improvements over recent years.  One of those contributors is speaker technology.  Although the national average of “clear and understandable” interactions via speakers has remained relatively close to 90% over the past five years (91% in 2005), improvements in the technology behind the communications systems have steadily improved the order takers’ ability to hear orders accurately.  These include innovations such as wireless headsets, which have freed employees’ hands and have allowed more employees to be a part of the actual communication process with customers.  Digital noise cancellation technology has allowed restaurant operators to eliminate a significant amount of background noise from the external environment, and, thus, gives order takers a better opportunity to hear the orders and the details of those orders more accurately.  Full-duplex systems, which have now become the norm, have allowed operators to open the dialogue between customer and order taker, thus making it a more natural conversation where both parties can hear and be heard simultaneously. 

Similarly, although the Order Confirmation Board (OCB) was introduced back in 1996, the most significant market penetration has occurred over the past 3-5 years.  During the past two years, OCB’s have become relatively common in drive-thru operations.  As a result, consumers have been trained to look at the confirmation board and, thus, effectively participate in ensuring that their order is properly taken and received.  This, in effect, has worked to create an overall awareness of order accuracy as a primary goal of drive-thru operations.  As a result, many operators who invest in an OCB also couple that investment with new internal procedures to help ensure that orders are delivered as intended. 

The results of these efforts become even clearer when we factor out the non-food items that are included in the percentages reported through this study (straws, napkins, and change).  To that end, 1.03% of the main items were inaccurate last year, versus .8% this year.  Side items were inaccurate .94% of the time last year versus .6% this year.  In 2004, beverage orders were reported as inaccurate at 3.52% of the visits, while in 2005 researchers reported that .63% of orders included an inaccurate drink flavor, .28% received an inaccurate size, and 1.79% received some other drink related inaccuracy (e.g. ice received in a ‘no ice’ beverage request).  Sandwich topping requests and condiment requests also reflect improvements from 2004 to 2005.

The combination of strong performance in both speed and accuracy proved to be quite rare as evidence of the fact that only five brands finished with a ranking in the upper tier (12^th place or higher) in both categories.  Three of those five finished with an overall ranking in the top four, with KFC and Arby’s finishing 9^th and 11^th respectively.  This would tend to lend credibility to the theory that often operators will sacrifice accuracy in pursuit of speed, particularly during the peak hours when speed translates into increased revenues (which is also when the researchers for this study visited restaurants). 

When we look at the national numbers for average speed of service, a slight increase is apparent - 189.83 seconds in 2004 to 193.2 seconds this year, which translates to a 1.8% increase.  Of the 25 chains included in this study, 11 reduced their average service times from 2004, while 13 had increases, and one (Church’s) was virtually unchanged. 

A number of factors contribute to the slight increase, but a case can certainly be made that performance on service speed is actually better this year, despite the increased average.  Consider the bevy of tools that are available to operators to help keep service times low, such as in-store speed-of-service timers that have become relatively common, several of which allow operators to learn intricate details about how and when speed of service breaks down.  Store designs are geared toward improved drive-thru speed, while operations and in-store contests often focus on speed.  OCB’s and wireless headsets contribute to removing bottlenecks in speed.  So how can we explain the 1.8% increase in service times?

One factor considered is the level of customer traffic at the restaurant.  Average service time increases as the number of vehicles in line increases.  In other words, the busier the drive-thru, the longer it is going to take to get your order – even when we only consider the time from when you place your order until you receive it.  This has historically been the case, and is true both within chains as well as across chains.  In 2004, for example, although the industry average service time was just under 190 seconds, it was 178 seconds when there were two or fewer other vehicles in line.  That average increased to 247 seconds when there were 3-5 other vehicles in line, and 264 seconds when there were six or more other vehicles in line.  During the 2004 study, the overall average number of vehicles in line upon the researchers’ arrival was 1.2.  In 2005 that number was 1.4, which means that the drive-thru’s were busier this year.

Another reason for the increased average service time is likely due to increases in average ticket size.  Studies consistently demonstrate that average ticket size for payment card users is higher than that of customers who pay with cash.  Electronic payment options have been on the rise in QSR steadily over the past five years.  The net effect of higher average tickets and increased customer traffic while maintaining essentially the same speed is that drive-thru’s are actually generating more revenue per second, even though the average service time, per se, may have gone up slightly. 

One last noteworthy performance from this year’s study is that of White Castle, which scored a perfect 100% for menuboard appearance.  More than 160 White Castle locations were visited by researchers in 2005, and none were found to have menuboard faults, per the standards of this study.  This is a remarkable effort, well deserving of the top slot in menuboard appearance.

·       Field work ran from April 15, 2005 through July 21, 2005.

·       A total of 89 different ‘shoppers’ participated in the study.

·       Longest service time was at a Popeye’s Chicken in Georgia, where a customer waited 1492 seconds for an order (nearly 25 minutes).

·       Fastest service time of 19 seconds was at a Del Taco.

·       Longest wait in line before reaching the speaker was at a McDonald’s in Nevada, where a customer waited 1026 seconds before reaching the speaker.

·       Most vehicles in line for service upon the researcher’s arrival was at a Chick-Fil-A in Alabama, where 15 vehicles were stacked in line to get lunch.