Order Here... Pick Up There!

When you place an order from your car at the fast-food restaurant, you take it for granted that someone inside the building is talking to you. However, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reprinted a Dallas Morning News article about a continuing trend toward centralized call centers to streamline some customer service activities; remote order taking is the latest trend in restaurant drive-through technology. Employees located in Anaheim are taking drive-through orders for a Hardee's restaurant in St. Louis. The Hardee's test is just one of a number of new programs being tried in the restaurant industry. A call center located in Colorado Springs handles drive-through orders from McDonalds outlets. From pizzas to party reservations, the industry is looking for new ways to use high-speed communications equipment to remove some communication intensive duties from in-store workers to off-site proxies, freeing on-site personnel to handle in-store matters. In a business where seconds equate to dollars, remote order taking can cut up to 13 seconds off an average drive-through transaction.