A franchised restaurant belonging to the world famous burger and fast food outlet chain, Wendy’s, has successfully used VoIP – or voice over internet protocol – to help speed up its drive-through customer ordering process.
According to the director of operations at the restaurant in question, the business VoIP-based application has led to the number of cars being served during the lunch-time peak rising from 112 an hour to 137.
The key to the restaurant’s success in this area has been based on its exploitation of VoIP’s ability to both communicate voice messages over the internet and to facilitate automated message delivery and call switching.
The process works by taking orders via an automated communication relay system – or ‘auto attendant’ – which then instantly transfers them, via a call centre, to both a kitchen information screen and a point of sale (POS) service location.
The ability to relay the communication via an automated source rather than by a traditional labour-based message transfer system has led to a faster, more cost-effective order handling system on the part of the restaurant – a system the restaurant has termed ‘speed ordering’.
However, the Wendy’s branch in question is known to be not the only restaurant to use auto attendant to help improve the running of its business; the VoIP-based technology is even understood to be used by the more gourmet-level restaurant, though on a much more selective basis.
For such restaurants auto-attendant would tend to be used as a way of relieving service staff from more routine work such as the handling of enquiries about restaurant opening times and set menu prices.
It is also understood that more and more restaurants – as much as one in three – are currently making more use of technology such as business VoIP and auto attendant than was the case three years ago.
