Burgers, fries ... and Wi-Fi?

In this day of bundled quick-service meals, the once-common question, "Want fries with that?" has all but vanished. But will the query, "Want Wi-Fi with that?" soon fall on the ears of billions of fast-food patrons?

 

Not likely, and for many reasons.

 

Few people enter a QSR brandishing a laptop, and given the speed of service, even fewer linger long enough to boot the thing up before their order's complete and they're out the door. And, technically speaking, operations which offer pay-for-use Wi-Fi don't sell it at the counter; customers make the transaction through their computers.

 

Wi-Fi watchers likeAIB Research did predict in 2006 that the number of commercial Wi-Fi hot spots would grow by 47 percent worldwide last year. But even then, only a portion of that increase came from restaurants.

 

What's clear is customers of large QSR providers like McDonald's, Starbucks and Krystal, like Wi-Fi access, and they'll go out of their way to get it. In this increasingly wired world, having Wi-Fi access could be a dealmaker for someone wanting to surf the 'Net while eating his No. 3 combo meal.

 

"We've spoken to a lot of customers who said they'd never eaten at a Kyrstal. But they came here because they needed to check their e-mail and knew we had a hotspot," said David Reid, chief information officer at 410-unit Krystal in Chattanooga, Tenn. "Because of that, now they're loyal."

 

All of Krystal's 232 corporate units offer Wi-Fi, along with half of its 178 franchised stores. By comparison, 8,500 of McDonald's 13,700 units have hotspots.

 

What's that you say: High-tech Wi-Fi in restaurants best known for their Playlands?

 

According to Danya Proud, spokesperson for McDonald's USA, the addition of Wi-Fi was one of several changes made by the burger giant to make its restaurants more contemporary. Along with its hipper more healthful menu, McDonald's has added furniture and décor to give its stores a modernized family room feel.

 

"We've had to evolve, and Wi-Fi is part of that," Proud said. "People are using our restaurants in different ways and on different occasions. A customer is a businesswoman one day who comes into the restaurant, eats and uses Wi-Fi. And then she comes back the next day bringing the kids home from soccer practice and using the drive-thru."

 

That Starbucks offers T-Mobile hotspot service at 5,100 domestic units is a response to customer requests for Web access, said Sanja Gould, spokesperson for the Seattle company.

 

"Our customers told us that they wanted to stay connected while they were in our stores," Gould said. "In some instances, customers would ask our baristas if they could plug into the phone jack."

 

 

While customers clearly like wireless access, how providing it benefits the business is a matter of opinion. McDonald's charges $2.95 for two hours' use, but Proud said she'd "not call it a big revenue generator." Starbucks merely partners with T-Mobile for its paid-for service, so stores receive no direct revenue for those transactions.

 

Krystal's hotspots, however, are free to users and will stay that way. When its restaurants are connected to high-speed networks for store data-transfer purposes, adding a hotspot is inexpensive, Reid said. Ultimately Krystal viewed the process of charging customers for access as an unnecessary hassle.

 

"When you charge for it, there's a whole infrastructure involved," Reid said. "You have to decide how to charge for it, who can connect and who can't. To do all that, you typically have to find a third-party partner, which means added expense, and suddenly you're looking at a very expensive proposition."

 

Making it complimentary was simple andcheap, Reid said, and he believes customers who find they have to pay elsewhere for access will come back to Krystal.

 

But in quick-service, where tables must turn quickly, is there a chance Internet users will linger and hog seats? For Starbucks, lingering is part of the coffeehouse culture, and Proud said there hasn't been a shortage of seats at McDonald's. Reid, on the other hand, said a dining room full of folks would be a great problem to have.

 

"Unlike some other concepts, our dining rooms are greatly underutilized because 70 percent of our business is drive-thru," he said. "It's extremely rare to have more than three or four people using Wi-Fi in the dining room at once, so we don't hear any complaints about (transmission) speed either."

 

As Krystal began testing Wi-Fi in 2003, it realized another benefit: store managers and corporate employees could access the Internet via laptops at the store, which boosted efficiency and productivity.

 

"Now our multiunit trainers and field trainers don't have to go back to their hotel rooms to check e-mail," he said. "Our people in the field could (logon to a virtual private network) and access documents they need to do their jobs."

 

Already, though, Reid said new technology is quickly making Wi-Fi obsolete. Krystal workers in the field do most of their Internet work with PDAs, and he said many customers do the same.

 

"I said years ago that Wi-Fi would only have a five- to eight-year lifespan," he said. "Serious computer users have a Cingular or Sprint card to access those networks, and others have Treos. The technology is changing so fast."