Restaurant Brands International, which owns all three brands, said Tuesday it plans to modernize and accelerate the drive-through experience in more than 10,000 restaurants in North America by mid-2022.
It involves the installation of over 40,000 digital menu screens or four drive-through lanes. Screens provide contactless payment methods to accelerate car progress through the drive, integrate loyalty programs to show customers items based on their return redemption history, and use predictive selling technology to indicate products based on weather, time of day and trending items. . The screens have also improved techniques that help prevent outages.
“The new digital screens will significantly enhance our drive-through experience at critical times and strengthen the key point of difference for our brands,” Matthew Duning, the company’s chief financial officer, said during a call discussing financial results on Tuesday.
Burger King and Tim Hortons in particular could use sales growth: both brands are struggling during the crisis.
In the three months ended September 30, Burger King restaurants saw a 7% drop in open sales in at least one year. In Tim Hortons, which is affected by the sudden lack of morning travel as many people work from home, open sales at restaurants have declined by 12.5% quarter-on-year. Tim Hortons is trying to run an afternoon sale to improve the situation.
Total revenue in the third quarter fell nearly 8% to 1.3 billion.
Even before the epidemic, many chains were strengthening their drive-through infrastructure.
In those places, new screens have contributed to higher overall sales and higher costs per order, “said Kobza.” It’s still early days. ”
It plans to start adding screens to pop-up locations later this year.
.