Been in a slow drive-thru lane for food and beverage pickup and wish you had gone inside? Long lines and order fulfillment delays frustrate hungry customers. But as the following Motley Fool article reports, Chipotle has a better idea that will speed you through its drive-thru lane.
For decades, drive-thru food ordering and pickup has been a weird mix of frustration and convenience. Sure, you never have to leave your car, but you also have to deal with muffled speakers, awkward handovers, and worst of all, screwed-up orders.
It’s not super convenient to have to go back into a store because an item was left off of your order. Of course, it’s even worse when you don’t figure out until you get home that the company forgot to “hold the mayo,” or put extra pickles on when you asked for none at all.
A number of companies — McDonald’s, most notably — have been working to improve that experience by pushing ordering and payment options into their apps. Chipotle recently joined the fray, expanding a test of a new type of drive-thru at some of its stores.
What is Chipotlane?
CEO Brian Niccol has aggressively been trying to make his chain’s restaurants more accessible and easier for customers to use. He has also been testing a new take on drive-thru that sounds promising (aside from its cringe-inducing name). “As part of our goal to increase access, we are also exploring a new format that leverages digitally enabled convenience,” he said during Chipotle’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “Our test of the initial 10 restaurants with the mobile order pickup lane that we call Chipotlane is showing promising results with a higher mix of digital sales and total restaurant sales.”
Many QSRs generate almost half of sales from the drive-thru window. So it’s not a sales channel to be taken lightly. McDonald’s and some others have double lanes, but that still does not eliminate delays at busy times. So Chipotle’s idea to have a dedicated lane for mobile orders is an excellent solution. Mobile order and pay continues to be a growth channel, so it’s no surprise to see a QSR respond to consumers’ buying preferences.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Director, Merchant Service at Mercator Advisory Group
