Dive Brief:
- Friendliness makes a difference at the drive-thru. QSR and InTouch deployed mystery shoppers to 13 major quick-service restaurant brands and found that when service was friendly, mystery shoppers reported feeling overall satisfaction with the drive-thru experience 99% of the time.
- That share dropped to 83% on trips where service felt neutral, and about 27% on trips where service felt “not friendly.” The study analyzed a total of 2,145 trips, with 165 mystery shopping outings to each brand.
- The overall friendliest brand in the study was Dutch Bros Coffee, followed by Chick-fil-A and Starbucks. These three brands also ranked highest for overall satisfaction, with Starbucks topping the list by this metric.
Dive Insight:
Consumers’ perception of the experience, particularly the friendliness and speed of service, is a lynchpin of drive-thru satisfaction.
When mystery shoppers felt that the order arrived quicker than expected, nearly two-thirds said they were very likely to recommend the brand, and 97% reported that they were satisfied with the experience.
That changed dramatically when service was slower than expected. In these instances, 13% were very likely to recommend the brand and 82% were satisfied with the experience — still a majority but a significant drop from when the speed felt breezy.
Speed and friendliness don’t have to be at odds, according to Isabelle Zdatny, head of thought leadership at Qualtrics XM Institute. People judge the drive-thru both on how it functioned and how it felt emotionally, and a bit of warmth can make a transactional experience feel special.
“That does not require a long conversation,” Zdatny told CX Dive in an email. “A genuine greeting, acknowledgment or brief moment of recognition can happen in seconds, but it signals that the customer is being treated as a person rather than the next order in the queue.”
Recognition can take the form of personalization. The research found that customer satisfaction rose from 93% to 98% when the experience was personalized in some way, such as by recognizing the customer as a loyalty member or having their name written on the order container — a practice Starbucks has reinstated.
Another brand working on improving personalization is Taco Bell. In January, Chief Digital and Technology Officer Dane Mathews discussed plans to recognize and celebrate loyalty member’s birthdays on its drive-thru screens.
Friendly experiences contribute to consumers feeling like they’re getting value for their money. On trips where the value felt excellent or good, nearly 9 in 10 mystery shoppers reported that the service felt friendly.
