Operations

Study: KFC, Taco Bell, Hardees have fastest drive-thru times

While customers are flocking to drive-thrus for their pandemic-era restaurant fix, they're waiting for their orders 30 seconds longer than last year.

October 2, 2020

The pandemic is putting customers literally in the the driver's seat when it comes to getting their fast food fixes. Although demand for drive-thru ordering has been soaring since the COVID-19 virus first began sickening people nationally in February, processing times are down 30 seconds per order, on average, according to an annual drive-thru study of 10 fast-food chains by SeeLevelHXm, a mystery shopping market research agency.

The good news, however, was that the time it took for customers to go from order placement to actually food pick-up was faster this year, but the total overall time in the drive-thru for customers slowed to the tune of about $64.2 million in estimated lost revenue annually per 2,000 locations of a typical brand, according to SeeLevelHX.

The study, which captures year-over-year drive-thru performance and compares the consumer experience at fast food brands, including order accuracy, speed, taste and service, measured 10 brands over the course of 1,490 drive-thru visits.

KFC took the lead for fastest total times for wait and service this year, followed by Taco Bell, Hardee's, Carl's Jr. and Burger King. T

Surprisingly, service time, the time from placing an order to picking up, was actually 16.9 seconds faster this year at 238.1 seconds, compared to 255 seconds in 2019.

Driving thru COVID-19

This year's study also explored COVID-19's impact on the industry, finding that 88% of drive-thrus did not have signs posted at the order station to indicate safety standards such as the use of masks, gloves and social distancing requirements.

"The pandemic is continuing to have a massive impact on QSRs from a spike in traffic and stricter safety standards and protocols to a substantial increase in staffing turnover and training, so I'm not surprised to see a dip in speed of service," Lisa van Kesteren, SeeLevel HX CEO, said in the release. "Still, every second has a substantial impact on the bottom line. And as more restaurants rely on the drive-thru for the majority of their revenue during this pandemic, and likely long term, it's never been more critical to focus on improving wait time by investing in technology like menuboards and mobile to stay competitive."

Here's how the brands stacked up within the top four categories:

Top three speed of service: