While this data focuses specifically on the drive-thru, everyone in hospitality can take something away that aligns with three key questions that every guest is asking, whether you’re checking in at a hotel or grabbing a burger at a window:
Do you value my time?
Are you listening to me?
And do you actually want me here?
The Foundation: 25 Years of Drive-thru Research
This year we celebrated the 25th anniversary of our annual drive-thru study, conducted in partnership with QSR Magazine. Every year we perform mystery shops, sending real people out in the field to collect performance-based data on what is happening at some of the leading QSR chains. For this milestone anniversary, we increased our core set of brands from 10 to 13, allowing us to segment the data across three distinct categories to provide deeper relevance to the industry at large.
From this data, which comes from over 2,000 drive-thru visits, we evaluate performance across key metrics including speed of service, order accuracy, and satisfaction. At its core, the drive-thru study is a time-based study. We evaluate speed of service in two parts: wait time (from when the customer enters the drive-thru until they place their order) and service time (from when the order begins being placed until they receive their food).
The 2025 Results: Speed and Context Matter
For 2025, the average total time for the whole study was 5 minutes and 35 seconds, with roughly an 80-20 split for service time to wait time. There’s significant nuance to this data depending on what you’re offering and what kind of operation you’re running. So, understanding where you fit amongst this competitive landscape and who you compare most closely with is critical for using this data effectively to benchmark your performance.
When compared to last year, the average total time was slightly slower than 2024. However, we added new brands to this study. Looking back over the last 10 years and excluding the new brands, we found the average total time was 7 seconds faster than 2024. We’ve now returned to pre-pandemic levels from 2019, though we’re still slightly slower than 2016.
We attribute this to increased complexity in the drive-thru today. Employees are now taking orders at the speaker, handling digital orders, managing catering orders, and dealing with third-party delivery. From a training perspective, understanding this increased complexity helps us equip teams with the knowledge they need to handle this new work environment and deliver better guest experiences.
Who Has the Fastest Drive-thru (and what has the biggest impact on speed)?
This is the question everyone asks every year. Taco Bell and KFC topped the speed rankings, with Tim Hortons (one of our new brands) coming in at 4 minutes and 25 seconds compared to the 5 minutes and 35 second overall average.
But what has the biggest impact on speed? Three key factors emerge year after year:
- The cost of repetition: When a guest has to repeat their order, it adds 1 minute and 25 seconds on average
- Poor speaker clarity: Increases average times by 54 seconds
- Low speaker volume: Adds 29 seconds
The most significant impact comes from that cost of repetition. Through our research, we attribute this to lack of attentiveness on the guest. When there’s distraction, when we don’t understand the flows, when we’re not trained effectively to be confident in what we’re doing, it takes away from that attentiveness and has real impacts on drive-thru times.
Speed Isn’t Everything: The Power of Friendliness
But in the drive-thru, speed isn’t everything – there are many other factors at play. When we look at our satisfaction metrics alongside friendliness scores, we see that when friendliness drops, there’s a direct impact on overall satisfaction ratings. However, we don’t see that same relationship with total time.
Chick-fil-A tops the list for both friendliness and overall satisfaction, followed by Dutch Bros in second place, then Raising Cane’s and Starbucks. The top four brands with the highest friendliness scores also have the highest overall satisfaction numbers – a very strong correlation.
Interestingly, the top two brands both use the “line busting” method, sending employees out to interact with guests. Even though Chick-fil-A had the longest overall average times in the entire study at 7 minutes and 6 seconds, 39% of their orders were rated as “quicker than expected.” Dutch Bros, with an average of 6 minutes and 22 seconds, showed similar results.
This demonstrates that guests go into engagements with expectations based on brands’ core value propositions. Not all brands compete on speed. The key is engaging with guests meaningfully throughout the interaction to make the experience feel more efficient.
The Operational Impact of Friendliness
“If we can train for hospitality, efficiency will come.” – Sarah Beckett
Friendliness is our superpower. When service was rated as friendly in our study, overall satisfaction ratings came in at 97% compared to 22% when service was not friendly. But the next findings might surprise you:
- Order accuracy was 80% when service was friendly compared to 70% when it wasn’t
- Average total time was 5 minutes and 23 seconds when service was friendly compared to 6 minutes and 57 seconds when it wasn’t
We see these results year after year. If we can train for hospitality, efficiency will come.
Suggestive Selling: Timing Makes the Difference
Is suggestive selling a time suck or an underutilized tool? The data shows significant variability in frequency of use of this strategy across brands, but the timing results are worth paying close attention to. When a suggestive sell was offered, average total time dropped to 5 minutes and 31 seconds compared to 5 minutes and 40 seconds when it wasn’t offered.
However, timing makes a crucial difference. When the suggestive sell is offered with the greeting (typically promoting limited time offers or new menu items), total time increases to 6 minutes and 4 seconds. But when offered after placing the order – “Would you like to make that a large? Would you like to make that a combo?” – it removes decision points from the customer interaction and reduces overall average time.
Key Takeaways for Success
Let me leave you with four key takeaways:
- Train for clarity. It’s not just technology that impacts speed – lack of attentiveness has a major impact on drive-thru times. Help employees focus on the customer and guest.
- Hospitality drives performance. Remember the metrics: 97% satisfaction, faster total time, higher order accuracy. Friendliness isn’t just a soft skill – it’s an operational accelerator and can be your superpower.
- Think about the flow. As we saw with the upsell example, top performers create rhythm and flow. Think about how transitions work and support teams in handling handoffs, especially in our increasingly complex operating environment.
- Measure, measure, measure. Without measurement, you don’t have true visibility into what’s happening. You can’t demonstrate return on training investment or identify friction points. Use whatever data you have access to – online reviews, customer feedback, mystery shopping data – to understand where you can drive improvements and support your teams in delivering brilliant guest experiences.
We are committed to empowering our partners with the latest insights, ensuring they deliver the best possible customer experience.
To download a copy of the full drive-thru study report, visit https://www.intouchinsight.com/resources/studies/drive-thru/
For more Intouch reports, visit: https://go.intouchinsight.com/cx-operations-insights/
CHART Community Discussion