Typically, QSR management devotes the greatest portion of attention and investment to the dining room, and relatively little concern is devoted to the Drive-Thru lanes.

Given that the typical location derives more than twice the revenue from the Drive-Thru lane than it does from inside, this can be a very poor allocation of resources.Emblematic of this error is the fact that while most QSR’s have incorporated modern Digital Signage in their dining rooms, many Drive-Thru lanes are still serviced by old-fashioned painted or printed signage.Keep that Line MovingThe number one goal QSR management should keep in mind for the Drive-Thru lane is to avoid delays because nothing will discourage a customer from returning to your establishment more so than a long wait in the queue.

Digital Signs, with their animations and eye-catching graphics, will quickly focus their attention on the task at hand, and facilitate quick choices.

And, if you take the next step and install digital ordering kiosks along the Drive-Thru pathway, your customers can complete the ordering process more quickly still, with no possibility of error and with no time-consuming vocal interaction with your staff.Day PartingWhy advertise your breakfast specials in the evening when they are not available, or hot chocolate on warm days and lemonade in the winter?

Not only does this have the potential of causing disappointment among the portion of your patrons who would, actually, like bacon and eggs later in the day, but it will also slow down the line as customer attention is diverted from the consideration of choices that actually are available.

With old-style painted or printed signage, this scenario is impossible to avoid, unless you want to deploy members of your staff to manually change the signs multiple times during the course of the day.With Drive Thru Digital menu boards, you can change the message you impart to your customers as often as you need to at the touch of a button on your smartphone or with a few key clicks on your laptop.If you’ve already installed Digital Displays in your dining room, you already know the basics, so that smart move is to complete the modernization of you QSR by extending the innovation to your Drive-Thru lane.

Once a customer has entered your drive-thru lane, there is nothing more critical to optimizing your bottom line than your drive-thru Digital Menus.In addition to spelling out what’s on the menu, they also need to covey what today’s special offer is, and the overall layout needs to be carefully construed so as to nudge your customers to spend just a bit more at your QSR than he might otherwise have intended to.

And, if you advertise or if your organization is composed of more than one location, the style displayed must be consistent throughout to support your brand.Placement is CriticalVertically oriented drive-thru Digital Menu Boards have proven to be the most effective with customers, and most peoples’ attention tends to focus on the right side of the board, so that’s where to place items that you want to quickly move.

If for whatever reason you do end up deploying a horizontal Digital Display, the “sweet spot” for this variety is in the very center of the board.Your car-side drive-thru Digital Displays will, by their nature, be smaller than those in your dining room, so it’s important to carefully choose what to highlight.

And, your customer has to devote much of her attention to safely operating her vehicle, so you’ve got to make it as easy for her as possible.

Clutter must be avoided at all costs, and items that are similar to each other should be displayed adjacently.

At the same time, you need to present a consistent message to your customers, so despite the size differential, the inside and drive-thru Digital Signs should be stylistically similar.Grabbing them right by the Taste BudsNowhere does the phrase, “one picture is worth a thousand words” carry more weight than it does with food.

They will shortly pay for themselves.

Yes, the initial outlay for the boards themselves and the associated software will not be inexpensive, but the investment will quickly pay for itself.

That’s because survey after survey reveals that revenues at the drive-thru lane will typically increase by from six to eight percent, once the signs are employed to their full potential.Faster throughput.

With digital signage, you can change your message with a click of the keyboard, and that means you can present a smaller, more focused message to your customers, based on the time of day, the day of the week, and even on the weather.

With less verbiage to wade through, your customers can make their decisions faster, and not only do you process customers faster, but also the customer spends less time waiting for his food, and he has more time to enjoy it.

He leaves happier, which also means he’ll return more often – a double win for you.Keyed into your POS system, and when you make a change in an item’s price simply and easily via smartphone or laptop, it gets transmitted not only to the digital signs but also to the POS system.

When you think about Drive Thru Headsets, you think comfort.

After all, if your employees aren’t comfortable, they won’t be happy, which can lead to poor performance and high turnover.

But, comfort is only one side of the coin – the other is durability.Headset Downtime Costs MoneyHeadset durability is an absolute must, because these devices are in use for the entire time that your establishment is open, and they must be able to stand up to the wear and tear that is an inevitable part of the busy QSR environment.

Drive-thru headsets are not cheap to repair, and over time the costs can easily run into four figures.You can purchase warranties, but that doesn’t eliminate the hassle of contacting the vendor to invoke them.

You can keep a few extra on hand, but they never seem to be there when they’re needed, and until you can remember where they are stashed and retrieve them, the employee whose job depends on their use is essentially hamstrung.

Your Drive-Thru Communications are disrupted, wait times soar, throughput drops, and you end up with frustrated staff and some very unhappy customers.How Drive-Thru Headsets FailThe first thing to consider is the environment the headset has to function in.

One of the great innovations in the QSR drive-thru lane in recent years has been mobile ordering.

No troublesome, error-prone verbal communication with your staff.

No cash handling, as the app has access to the customer’s debit card, and payment is coordinated between the app and your POS system.The problems start when your customer arrives, taste buds aglow and belly grumbling, awaiting the first encounter with that delicious cheeseburger, or perhaps a burrito special that she’s ordered.

That’s because some QSRs, even after investing in all this wonderful technology, still only have only one line.

Customer has ordered ahead, she still has to wait in the same line as everyone else, to wit, all your other customers who are still studying your drive-thru digital menu boards, deciding on what they’d like to order.She does save some time online, specifically, the time that she herself would have spent perusing your drive-thru displays for the perfect repast.

But she still could end up stuck behind a bus full of foreign tourists, unfamiliar with your menu, and each one of them insisting on her own separate check for the small coke she finally deigns to order.

One of the greatest benefits of outdoor digital signage is a significant decrease in the time a drive-thru customer in his car, waiting to receive their order.

Also high on the list is the ability to instantly highlight an item that is, today, being specially promoted.

Perhaps even more important was the positive effect that outdoor digital menu boards on upselling, a critical component of QSR success.Reducing CostsIt is sometimes hard to notice incremental costs – costs that don’t appear in a lump sum, but rather costs that insidiously increase bit by bit, not always noticed as the drain that they are.

Constantly printing outdoor menu signs are one such source, and they can add up to big money over the course of a year.

Also eliminated are the cost costs in time that putting up and taking down printed signage.

With digital signage, everything, including prices, specials, and the menu itself can be changed simply and immediately via an app residing on your tablet or smartphone.Reducing food wastage is another aspect of reducing costs.

It’s difficult enough to change a painted or printed menu sign in the dining room of your QSR, and it’s even more difficult to do so in your drive-thru lane. Two employees have to drop whatever else they are doing for the task, one to hold the ladder, and the other has to climb it to change the sign. And, it has to be done for each change of menu, such as at breakfast lunch and dinner. And how will drive through customers know about any one-time specials or specials-of-the-day unless the signs are changed yet again?

Digital Signage to the Rescue

All of these problems can be alleviated through the deployment of digital menu boards. Instead of a major production, changing the menu as often as you like can be effortlessly accomplished through an app on your smartphone.

A relatively new possibility is that of car-side digital signs, keyed to an app on the customer’s smartphone that works with her ordering history, she expressed preferences, and with what’s available today from your kitchen. The customer speeds through the process gets what he really wants, and your throughput and revenues soar. In addition, everything is patched through to your POS system and the total is seamlessly deducted from her debit card, and still, more time and effort are saved.

And beyond the efficiency, there is the fun – for the customer. Your best QSR customers are the young, who were practically weaned on digital technology. They prefer electronic communication to interfacing verbally, and that’s with their friends and family, never mind with QSR service personnel. This is the way like to do business, and if you accommodate them, they will tell all their friends – digitally, of course.

Drive-thru Digital Signs need to be Outdoor Tough

Your employees won’t have to endure rain, sleet, snow or the summer’s heat after you’ve installed digital menus in your drive-thru lanes, but the signs themselves must so make sure that the ones you buy are up to the task. They also need to be able to communicate with your kitchen and your POS system in order to make the most of this powerful technology. For these reasons, you need to do your homework before you make a commitment, and make sure you are dealing with a vendor you can trust.

About Author:

Having been involved with digital signage and With several years of experience implementing indoor menu boards, drive-thrus and digital menu boards since its inception, Origin Display Group know what questions to ask and the routes to take when acting as a guiding hand towards a solution. Beyond our product line, it is our services that truly set us apart. We don’t just sell you menu boards, we provide solutions that meet your specific needs, budget, expectations and DEADLINES!

Content Source: Blog - Origin Display Group

By now, many QSR’s have made the change from static printed or painted signage to modern, versatile Digital Signs in their dining rooms, But that’s only half the story, or more accurately, it’s one-third of the story, because the dining room only accounts for one-third of the revenues.

The other two-thirds comes thru the drive-through lane.Your Captive AudienceSince most of the revenue comes through the drive-thru, doesn’t it deserve at least as much investment as does the less-productive dining room?

And, consider that your customer is essentially locked into the drive-thru queue for several minutes.

You can introduce new specials, one-time offers or even run advertisements to build brand loyalty.

And, if you’ve already introduced Digital Signage in your dining room, you know how easy it is to rotate your message, with a touch of a button, rather than a trip to the printers, and wrestling with mechanical signage in the wind, the rain and the dark.Customers Need Time to DecideIt’s easy for you to forget that while you and your staff are familiar with any new items on the menu, your customers probably aren’t.

So, give your drive-thru customers enough time to take it all in, to consider and to decide.

You started your journey into modern QSR technology with digital menu boards, and they were a great success.

Then you did the same thing with your drive-thru, and not only did wait times go down due to better visibility and a more pointed message, but the outdoor digital signs acted as a beacon, drawing in technophilic millennials who were previously unaware of your existence, but now regard your QSR as THE with-it place to be.Digital Kiosks are your next step into the 21st Century because they will directly tie your customer and her money to your POS system and they do so by way of your indoor and digital drive-thru menu boards – here’s how.This technology makes it possible to truly personalize your drive-thru customer’s mealtime experience.

After she quickly scans your digital menu board, she punches up her order to the kiosk.

If she mentions a hamburger, the kiosk might also suggest a soft drink, or some French fries, and based on her answer, it might suggest today’s hamburger special.

You have more than doubled the amount of revenue you will receive from this customer, with no time-consuming and error-prone interaction with your staff.Now, add in a Smartphone App.

If your digital kiosk has been enabled to communicate via an app on the customer’s smartphone, the app will identify that customer and will have knowledge of what he usually orders – at this time of day – and will make appropriate suggestions.

The typical QSR derives over two-thirds of its revenues from its drive-through customers.The two things that members of this critical group prize more than anything else is ordered accuracy and the speed with which they get that order, so they can then quickly begin to enjoy it.

What could be more frustrating to a drive-thru customer than, after she’s driven away, to open the box or bag with your establishment’s identity boldly festooned all over it, and not to find that cheeseburger special that she was looking forward to all afternoon, but something entirely different?Low Wait Times Do Not Make Up for Inaccuracies.What goes for the order takers goes for the kitchen staff as well.

Sure, they can zip through their work and get that burrito platter out in record time, but what good is it if the customer asked for beef and he gets chicken?

More likely, he will, literally, eat your mistake.

But he’ll be very unhappy, and perhaps he’ll never return again.Signage is the Key to a Happy Drive ThruAnd digital signage is the way to do it.

With digital menus, you can update your presell menu at a moment’s notice, and present your drive-thru customers with the 20% of the choices they make 80% of the time.

In terms of frequency of visits to QSR’s, nobody beats the 35 and under crowd.

And, if there’s one thing that defines this age group, it is the fact that they live their lives online.

They are connected to the internet via their smartphones almost continuously, from the moment they wake up until the minute that goes to sleep, to a degree that mystifies most older folk.This young demographic is even more likely to choose the drive-thru lane over the dining room than older customers are, and because they are addicted to everything tech, they are far more likely to patronize a QSR that employs drive-thru Digital Signs over one that doesn’t.

But in reality, the quickest and surest way to capture this lucrative demographic is to appeal to them where they live, and that’s at their smartphones.Mobile OrderingIt isn’t easy to establish, as you’ll need to develop a smartphone app that connects your customer’s debit card to your POS system, and feeds in much of the same information that is presented to your Drive-Thru Menu Boards.

Your customers need no human-to-human contact with your order takers or your cashiers.

And because this is the way the younger crowd likes to do business, you will gain their loyalty and patronage.

The first word in QSR is Quick, and that word sums up, in a nutshell, what people expect and demand.

They want to be able to choose their meals, pay for their meals, and receive their meals quickly, with as little muss and fuss as possible.Eliminating the Line at the Drive-Thru LaneIf a potential customer sees a large line forming in the drive-thru lane, he’ll simply keep on driving and go somewhere else to avoid the hassle.

From the standpoint of maximizing revenue, this would be a tragedy; especially considering the fact that approximately seventy percent of QSR revenue is garnered at the drive-thru.Your Point-Of-Sale (POS) system is a vital link in the chain that ultimately connects your customers to their meals.

The more modern POS systems allow people to not only order their meal from the convenience of their smartphones but also make it possible for customers to pay for them from online accounts.This is advantageous in at least two ways.

For one, time consuming and error-prone interactions between your customers and staff are eliminated.

And secondly, most of today’s young people are indelibly linked, psychologically and culturally, to the smartphones.

There’s no doubt about it – if you have a drive-thru lane, there’s not a better investment you can make than digital signage to increase sales.

Digital menu boards are the easy way to make sure that your drive-thru customers know what the day’s specials are.

And, when the menu changes with the time of the day, you can get the information out through an app on your smartphone – your staff won’t have to go outside in the freezing cold or the pouring rain to change a painted or printed sign.It will take some time for your customers and your staff to get used to the new digital signs.

But, almost immediately, you’ll find yourself experimenting with new meal specials, if for no other reason than that you won’t need to go through all the hassle of a trip to the print shop with each new idea, because you’ll be making menu changes electronically.Planning is the Key.

And it is made a bit more complicated because the physical layout of your drive-thru lane may well determine not only what is best, but also what is possible.

You may not have enough room to take advantage of everything that’s possible with digital signage, and there may have to be tradeoffs.Presell Boards.