Artificially lowering drive-thru times?

I don't mind pulling ahead at all. However, what happened recently
pissed me off. I placed my order and pulled up to pay (this was at a&w
btw). I was told my chicken was going to be "a few minutes". I said
sure and pulled ahead. Well, I waited for like five minutes, meanwhile
cars are lining up behind me(obviously asked to pull ahead and wait as
well). The person behind me even had the balls to honk their horn at
me like they thought I was just waiting there for fun. So finally the
lady comes out(the manager nonetheless) with my order and says to me
"Your making quite the line up. Here's your order". I'd like to know
how I was creating the line up by waiting for my order. What the hell
did they expect me to do? Pull ahead onto the street and block traffic
or pull into the parking lot and wait for them to find me? I just
drove away. My blood was already boiling from having to wait that long
not to mention being honked at.

Corporate is behind the drive-thru timer to make sure the employees
are getting your product out fast. But, you coming to the drive-thru
right after breakfast when they are changing over for lunch may take a
couple extra minutes.Where as these employees are threatened write ups
and even termination if time is not met. Burger King still keeps
adding more and more to their menu, so it takes the customer longer to
figure out what they want. By then their time has been used. How would
you like to work a job where some one can't make up their mind, and
then gets to pay window and changes their mind all together? While
these employees are trying to do their job as they are told,they
actually do come across people like you daily that don't have an ounce
of human compassion for their fellow man doing an honest job. You
should have waited longer than 7 minutes. It's called karma
baby!!!!!If you weren't in a hurry what's your problem? P.S. For those
of you in a hurry, make your mind up quick,( there is always a pre
sell board first) then a menu board where you actually place your
order, don't add on to your order when you come up to pay, get off the
phone, have your money ready, and give people a break once in awhile,
it's not always about you.

I have experienced this on several occasions. I simply refuse to pull
forward and wait, when there is no one in line behind me. That is
ridiculous. If they are doing their jobs correctly, then my food will
be made and delivered through the window on-time. Problem solved. If
it there was only one single car behind me, then yes, I would consider
pulling forward. But not when I'm the only one there.

I've had similar complaints about this practice of having customers
pull forward at the drive-thru and wait. I used to be compliant in
such situations, especially at places where they had special order
parking specifically constructed so there was a logical and safe place
to actually park while waiting for one's order. A lot of places don't
have that, leaving people to sit there idling in the middle of the
parking lot or some other inconvenient spot. If the place wasn't
designed or built with a post-drive-thru waiting area, then they
shouldn't ask customers to pull forward. I've been fouled up trying
to get in to the parking lot to dine in while they've had people
waiting in the parking lot for their drive-thru orders.

The last time I agreed to pull forward at the drive-thru, I waited and
waited for what seemed an inordinate length of time. I finally
parked, got out and walked inside, only to find my order had already
been sitting there bagged up on the counter. Apparently, they
"forgot" to bring it out to me.

I've also found that they've been intentionally vague about how long
it would take. I was at a Burger King one time, ordering a double
cheeseburger, and the employee said it would be "just a couple of
minutes" and asked if I would pull forward. I politely refused. "But
it'll just be a couple of minutes," she said. I said, "Well, if it's
all the same to you, I'd rather just wait right here, since I've had
trouble when I've pulled forward in the past. Then the manager came
over and got a bit huffy with me, and he also insisted that it would
be a "couple of minutes." After he realized that I was standing firm
and wouldn't move, he got even more angry and said, "Well, okay, then,
it'll be five minutes before it's ready."

I happen to think that there's a difference between five minutes and
"a couple of minutes." Instead, he gave me my order within a minute
and said that he gave me Whopper meat in a rather snotty tone. That
whole experience has made me avoid Burger King ever since.

Sadly you nailed it. However McDonalds and all others are in the same
boat. Truly speed of service and product hold times are the #1 abd #2
concerns. Normally however long wait times are bumped by the system,
so it does not affect times. It records those as slowpokes. The
problem of course is that if they let you sit at the window there is
the chance that soneone else pulls up within the 7 minute time frame
causing thier average to jump out of site. I don't know if the times
are sent to corporate but it truly is a contest between stores to get
the best times.
7 minutes, is a long time. Cook time for 6 patties would be 3:40 and
they can make up to 4 sandwiches at a time by the rules. Adding in
completion times to 30 seconds means you should have got it in 4
minutes maybe 4:30 if inside customers were a factor. Steakhouse cook
time is 5:30 giving a 6 minute average. These figures do not reflect
order time, typically would add another 30 seconds depending on your
knowing what you want and any need to repeat the order when noisy cars
etc are figured into the process. Microwaving each sandwich adds
another 20 seconds still putting you out of range. I would have gone
as far as 5 minutes being reasonable, given that there could be a
small delay in getting the order started.

I don't particularly mind being asked to "pull forward" per se - the
poor unsuspecting employee is just doing what they have been
instructed to do by corporate policy.

The deeper, corporate deception is what I object to - they are
counting on my willingness to be agreeable, and they have no
conscience about instructing an unsuspecting employee to ask me to
participate in their corporate game-playing. The "drive thru" times
are carefully monitored and calculated for all stores in the chain -
through the wonders of computers - and the results are then
manipulated and reported within the corporate structure. This is the
"gotcha" game that "too big to fail" companies now play on all of us
poor dumb paying customers - and they provide no recourse against it.
An "excellent" drive-thru time, combined with other compiled (and
probably also manipulated) data, makes for an overall "excellent
customer service" standard - one of the many criteria that is examined
closely by banks when they are approached to lend more money to these
giant companies. They just conveniently fail to mention that they have
established corporate policy which circumvents the real truth of their
"wait times".

A particularly good example of this egregious behavior is exemplified
when one has a "bad" customer service experience with a big company.
In a follow-up encounter with the company, while still attempting to
get resolution to the original problem, the customer then receives
adequate service (which should have been provided the first time).
Immediately upon conclusion of the second customer service encounter,
the customer is then asked to "rate" the company's customer service -
but the "rating" is limited to the current, or adequate, encounter
only. The company does not allow the customer to rate the company
overall based on the total encounters required to resolve the
customer's issue. Just another little trick of the "customer service"
trade in the 21st century - one that is particularly well-played these
days by Bank of America, among others. I decline to participate in
any survey that doesn't allow me to address the complete story of my
customer service problem with them.

If enough of us decide we no longer want to be manipulated behind the
scenes by these slick little ploys, they will eventually stop doing
this in the name of "customer service". Generally, though, the big
corporations assume that we are all too busy, too distracted, or too
ignorant of how they manipulate data to their advantage to care one
way or the other. And as long as they have that deceitful and
condescending attitude toward "customer service", it will remain low
on the priority list of any company.

So when I'm asked to "drive forward" and I'm the only person in line,
I just smile sweetly and say "Thanks, but I'm just fine right here."

This happened to me at Hardees this morning. I refused to pull
forward
- for one I am not going to help them circumvent the timer system
that
cost a lot of money to make sure the orders are put out timely.

Another reason for me is the common mistakes. Say you pull forward
and
they bring your order. What happens if they have missed something and
they just handed you the food and took off back into the store????

Now you have to go inside the store or get back in the long drive
through line. Possibly you might not be dressed to go inside, this
might be why you went through the drive through...

It's all wrong and anybody here who defends the the "pull forward
system" must work for a store that has this.

It's like getting a star by your name for knowing your ABCs. Does the
winner also get to wear a little paper crown for a week?

I never actually knew all this stuff about drive thru times, but I can
say that I remember being asked to pull forward many times growing up
and recently at a Hardee's. I didn't ask why, but I was the only one
there, and it didn't really bother me, I thought it was weird, but
whatever. I was happy to have my breakfast!

I worked at BK, and I know up here after the 1 minute mark, the thing
makes loud, painful beeps in your ear every second. I once had a lady
refuse to move the car for six minutes while her chicken cooked!
That's 360 beeps!

As well, even thoug it doesnt seem more than trifial than you, a lot
of places DO have a lot of pressure on their employees to keep those
times down, sadly. The employee probably just doesnt want to get into
trouble.

Hopefully Corp will see this and do something about those wait times.
I know keeping a wait time down is good but shouldnt be punishing if
the situation is stupid.

I work at McDonalds. Above our drive thru window we have a sign that
states "If a car is at the window more than 30 seconds and you don't
have the food, put the order in hold and pull them up!"

The employee isn't gonna diddle around inside just because they pulled
you forward, the employee wants the customer out of there as fast as
they can get you out. I could see why the employee got a little irked
when you questioned why you had to pull up, plus you were getting your
food fresh.

It takes 10 extra seconds for them to run your food out to you, it's
not like they asked you to get out of your car and come inside to
wait.

I worked at Arby's in high school and once an order had been paid for,
it could be cleared from the screen at any time. We technically were
not supposed to clear it until the order had been handed out, but
people did it all the time. Most of the time, when we had to ask
somebody to pull forward, we would upgrade their fry to a large or
throw in a free shake, etc. for their trouble. I think it was kinda
silly of them to make you pull forward just to cut down on their
times, but I don't think it's that big a deal.

On a totally separate note, I'm surprised the school would allow you
to bring fast food for your kid for lunch. Many schools won't even
let parents pack a cookie or a candy bar as a treat in their lunches,
but fast food is okay? I'm not saying you're wrong for wanting to
give your kids BK once in a while, just trying to understand......

I had the same thing happen to me only better.

The cashier asked me to pull up 10 feet then BACK UP to the window
again to "reset the timer"


It was in Manchester, NH.

Out of curiosity, does anyone here know how BK actually handles drive
through speed? It seems odd for the window person to say something
about the "speed" of the transaction being timed. Most places I know
just tap a button when they are "done" with a transaction to clear out
the que screen.

It was annoying at McDonalds, because you would be trying to bag an
order (I was a newbie), and the order would get cleared off the
screen, you could only lay out so many paper receipts at a time and
you would have NO idea what was actually supposed to go in the bag or
what they wanted for their drink.

My guess is that this is what contributes to the high number of
mistakes at the drive through window.

This was probably a placeholder answer in lieu of a longer
explanation, not a very good one, though, since I doubt asking you to
pull forward actually affected their "speed." I don't hit drive
throughs often, but at Culvers I usually end up pulling ahead (Along
with three or four cars) because there are a lot of people behind me
and the food is all made fresh. I'd personally rather have it that
way.

To be fair, most places probably skew the delivery time. I doubt most
places are going to do anything about it though.

3 minutes or less. However less than 1 minute is considered too fast.
It actually records 3 timings for each customer. Start time (placing
order) which should average 1 minute or less. Time it took you to
reach the second or third window, and of course wait time. It does not
factor drive offs, i.e. place order then driving off without paying,
which seldom happens.

Bumping the order off the screen does not affect the drive thru times.
You can recall recent orders so you never have excuses for not knowing
what goes with what.

took my wife and kids to Wendy's. In the confusion of ordering meals
for kids - one vegetarian - we neglected to get one small drink.
While eating, we realized the mistake and I went back to the counter.
I told the cashier that I didn't get one of the kid's meal drinks, so
she got me one. Back at the table I remembered that the meal my
daughter got was not technically a "kid's meal", so I owed for a small
drink. I went back again to pay, but the manager wouldn't accept my
money. He flat-out wouldn't. But I am not going to write a letter to
corporate reporting him because he bent the rules. I am morally
corrupt, and would undoubtedly burn in Hell (if I wasn't an atheist).

I would actually like to write a letter of praise, but don't want to
rat this guy out. Terrence, I owe you a beer.

Haha! This is one of my pet peeves! Glad to know I'm not the only
one out there! I used to work a late shift, and would stop at BK on
the way home for dinner at about midnight once or twice a week. They
were not ever busy-most times I was the only person there. They
always, always, always asked me to pull forward. I can totally see
and understand if there was another car behind me. Even if one comes
up while I am waiting-they could then at that point after they took
the other persons order ask me to pull forward. But it was literally
"here is your change please pull forward and we will bring the order
to you".

The whole discussion on this letter is around what the OP and other
members here ASSUME to be a violation of a rule.

Consider this; Maybe there is a policy where employees can pull a car
forward if there is a legitimate delay, for example food is cooking
fresh. Maybe BK's upper management has decided that since these
situations are not typical and do not represent a "normal"
transaction, the car can pull forward and not kill the service time.
There still is a "check" on this system, because if too many people
are pulled up and have to wait, complaints will be coming in to the
store and management about the speed of service.

this letter is still #1!

When I worked at Target, there were certain "processing" levels we
were supposed to adhere to - Scanning and completing the transactions
in a specified amount of time to achieve "green" status. Each
transaction was timed and a percentage calculated. Good cashiers
would consistently process above 90% to maintain "green."

Often times, there were things out of our control - price checks,
customers hunting for change or credit cards, manual verification of
credit cards or processing of paper checks - that took longer. Should
*I* as a cashier have to take a hit on my speed score because of
something completely out of my control? Should my personal numbers
(that were used in reviewing and determining raises and promotions)
look bad because of the actions of a customer or a co-worker?

The answer is no. Which is why we had a little "Suspend Transaction"
button on the register to stop the clock if a situation like this
happened.

They didn't circumvent the system, there was a legitimate delay in
getting the food to you and that is why they stopped the clock. It
wasn't that the person at the drive-thru was slow or not being
attentive enough. It was something that was fully beyond their
control. You are completely twisting around the point of the clocks
and trying to pervert the situation to being some evil plan against
humanity that it's not.

I'm wondering if you've even ever worked in fast food establishment to
understand WHY they put those things in place to begin with! Perhaps
if you had, you might not have written a letter like this.

It's an insult to those employees that after they ensured that you got
fresh food in a reasonable amount of time, you still sought to punish
them.

Here is my thought for what it is worth....I agree as a customer that
it is an inconvenience although maybe not a big one.

The larger issue is that the store is cheating the system. They are
essentially falsifying corporate data and if they aren't honest with
little things then they aren't with big things either. If I owned a
store where that happened I would fire a store manager for allowing
this practice - In fact I've done just that in similar situations.

I can't believe this much thought has been put into this. When they
tell me to pull up, I just pull up. No big deal.

Which reminds me, when I visited Seattle a few years back, we went
through a McDonald's drive thru. Before we got to the window, our bag
was there. We still giggle about it to this day, that was some fast
service!

OP, unclench.

I don't blame you for being upset, it seems like they have
circumvented a safeguard to ensure a certain level of productivity in
regards to drive-thru times.

One rule though, I never argue with people who handle my food till
after it's in my possession and even then, only if I never plan on
eating at that establishment again.

Good luck, I liked your letter it was informative.

Just out of curiosity, does the OP say anywhere if this BK has a
specific time that they start serving lunch? I did a quick search and
found that it varies from Franchise to Franchise - some serve burgers
all day, some start at 10:30 and some at 11:00, etc.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if they didn't serve lunch until 11 and were
trying to be helpful by making burgers at 10:49?

i worked at a fast food restaurant for several years. i can tell you
that a person waiting on their food IS top priority, and the sense of
urgency doesn't go away when you ask them to pull forward.

i didn't always ask people to pull forward if i didn't expect another
car to come along, but i don't see anything odd about it.

one time i didn't ask a lady to pull forward, and when i opened the
window to give her the food, she wanted to know why i wiped her food
container with a NASTY rag. i wiped gravy off the side of a styrofoam
gravy bowl with a rag. i don't see what the problem was (then or now)
unless she was planning on licking the container. so, maybe they have
people pull up to avoid unnecessary comments like that. people who
have nothing to do can create all kinds of scenarios in their head
(like food tampering).

by the way, we weren't on any kind of timer. i asked them to pull up
just so (like someone else said) i didn't have to ask them later when
someone did pull up.

i'm asked to pull up all the time and i don't think a thing about it.

"Is it acceptable to ask them to pull forward without their order
complete just to stop the timer?"

Well, yeah. That's the "fast" part of fast food and a standard thing
in the industry. Even

It doesn't bother me any. To me, it's more important that my food is
cooked properly and my order is prepared correctly. Getting in and out
of the drive-thru in two minutes means nothing if my hamburger is way
undercooked and I get sick because of it.

I worked at Burger King for 2 years as a teen, and I did this to
people ALL the time. It was never a problem. Most people I served
understood our policy whether or not there was a person behind them. I
mean, what's the big deal? It will still be handed to you when the
employee walks outside to your car, you don't have to walk anywhere to
get it.

Also, the employee could actually get in trouble and written up if
their drive thru time wasn't good. When I worked there, the average
time HAD to be 2 minutes and 30 seconds or we would be reprimanded.

As a naive teen, also it being my first job, I accepted this and tried
my best and had no problem pulling people up.


It's a very common practice, and you're getting your food fresh. There
is no reason to complain.

I agree. If there was no one behind you there was no reason to pull
forward. If the timer is recording wait times, your full time spent
waiting should be recorded.

This will be my last response to this:

My complaint IS:

1. Asking me to pull forward turns off the timer. the timer tells the
boss how fast the orders were delivered. Once I pull forward, they
have met their objective of fast delivery time and the sense of
urgency is now gone. I instantly go from top priority to somewhere
lower on the list. Which, I believe, makes me wait longer than if I
remained top priority all along.

2. Asking me to pull forward will not make my order come out faster,
in fact it will make it slower. If I was top priority even after
pulling forward, they still have to run my food through the lobby, the
doors and out to my car instead of simply handing it out the window.

3. I am the customer. I believe that BK should be accomodating me.
In other words doing whatever it takes to get my order to me as fresh
amd as quickly as possible. pulling forward does not accomodate me...
in fact I would be accomodating them.

4. I don't like people using me to cheat the system. The timer is
used to time orders being delivered to the guest, not to time how fast
you can ask someone to pull forward. therefore the times in my
opinion are artificially lowered when they do this and unfortunately
at my expense.

My complaint IS NOT:

1. how long my order took.

2. losing 15 seconds of my day.

3. employees goofing off.

4. food quality.

If anyone is still confused, I am sorry. I am being as clear as I
possibly can. Good day!

Why should they get their time ruined by a guy who refuses to pull
forward? It's efficiency. How would you like it if you were behind
someone such as yourself who sat there arguing.

First of all I waited until 10:56 not 11:56... that was a typo,
sorry.

Second of all, there were 0 cars behind me from start to finish.

Third of all, and most importantly, The second I pull up and get off
the clock, is the exact same second that the staff doesn't care how
fast my order is prepared. They already earned their 30 sec.
drive-thru time. Why would they care if some customer has to wait?

Also, I never started an argument. I simply was inquiring about their
procedure. The employee was the one who determined it was an
argument.

I don't understand why you didn't move up like they asked. They would
have brought the food right out to you, so it would only add a few
seconds to the wait.

Once, I ordered a fish sandwich (among other things) from Wendy's.
Those can take some time to prepare. I was the only one in line and
they asked me to pull ahead and wait.

I only waited about ten minutes and nearly six cars went through at
that time. So, my point is...there wasn't anyone behind you *then* but
what if someone comes along a little later?

I would have just done what I was asked to do. No need to argue. They
are the experts, they know what they are doing.

In case another car does come along, it's easier to ask you NOW To
pull forward (they seemed to know that your order would take a while)
than to open the window and ask you to move after you've already
waited a couple of minutes.

If you pulled ahead and waited for your food to be brought to you when
it was prepared, you wouldn't need to be concerned about food
tampering or how average car time is calculated.

Problem avoided.

I guess I don't understand why you think you got worse customer
service by being asked to pull forward as opposed to sitting at the
window? I worked BK way back in High School, and yes we did get
dinged for long drive-through wait times. Asking someone to pull
foward if there was something that was going to take a while longer,
like waiting for a fresh burger, was common practice. 7 minutes from
order to food doesn't seem excessive at all, so I'm not sure I can
agree that your service was at all compromised.

At first I thought this was a valid complaint, but after reading the
responses, I too have to wonder why this was such a big deal. All you
had to do was move your car and have the order brought to you. I
don't understand how doing that would affect the food or service.
Unless your order was not completed satisfactorily, I really don't
what you are complaining about.

you only had to wait 7 minutes for the food (assuming the 11:56 was a
typo)

so the only issue is that they asked you to pull forward?

I don't see how customer service was degraded.


now if you had to wait 15-30 minutes with no line behind you... then
i'd see it as a CS issue, but I'm just not seeing it here.


And... i'm also wondering why the sudden suspicion of food tampering?

You pulled up at 10:49 am and got your burgers at 11:56??? Hopefully
you turned the car off




Good Day

This is standard procedure at most drive thrus. If an order is going
to take a long amount of time, you pull forward and they bring it out
to you. It is not necessarily them trying to artificially lower times,
it is an efficiency issue if another car or multiple other cars had
come. The timer would be completely shot if multiple cars who could be
served immediately had came and had to wait for 7 minutes because you
tried to start an argument with the lady at the window because you
didn't want to pull up.

So they asked you to pull up? whats the big deal? its more of a hassel
for them since they now have to run around the counter and outside to
hand it to you.

Why do people feel the need to argue with the workers. Would it bring
you a bit of joy to get someone fired over this?