Time is Money.

There is an incredibly famous saying “TIME IS MONEY” and that saying has stood the test of time, this is particularly true for the services sector as in the market if you are not fast enough you will not be around long enough.?

The year 2022 has begun and with it comes a very fast-paced lifestyle where one can’t help but indulge themselves into the world of fast food! Nowadays fast food has become a part of our lifestyle almost every evening. We get a craving for something that is very tasty and you can get it very quickly, on road trips, going to the college canteen, having a night or a day out with friends and family the go to the stations are the fast-food joints.?

So here today, we are talking about quick-service restaurants wherein the name says we are about quick service. Hence, they need to be very well prepared if they want to stay in business for a long time. They need to be quick on their feet. They need to be managing their supply chains excellently. They need to be up and about on their inventories. They need to be excellent. In terms of their customer service, they need to be excellent in terms of initiating their plan of having a meal. ?

They need to be very analytical regarding the wait times that the customer will tolerate before they walk out of their restaurant and almost never come back again, hence we discuss the zone of tolerance in quick-service restaurants or rather any other restaurant that is serving food to be people The people have a certain tolerance a certain time by which they will wait by which they will become a regular customer and by which they will become a very loyal customer as well. So, these restaurants need to find out the time in which they will be successful in acquiring a loyal customer.?

So, there are a set of certain things these restaurants can do to improve their services to keep their customers in the zone of tolerance and keep the customers happy and make them loyal. Henceforth, we will discuss these things one by one??

So, the first and foremost is, there should be some strategies implemented to manage the customers' wait times.?

• Employee training - These are the people who are going to be standing in front of the customers. This is your trust and the front line of defense. These are the ones who can help create a great customer experience. Employees should be trained and equipped to manage waiting customers, communicate information, and resolve issues. As we know communication is key. And the more transparent communication we have with our customers, the better our relationship with them is an employee who is well trained can turn a negative customer experience into a positive one simply because they know what to do and we have to teach them how to do it and what to do.?

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• Setting the expectation- you can always with the help of communication, let your customer know they have an expectation of how much they are going to wait. This simple step helps the customer psychologically be prepared for the wait. It also gives them options. As we take an example in Disneyland the queues there have time written on boards. As to how much they have to wait before getting to the counter, they have boards with values of 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes from here, and these are calculated with techniques like 6 Sigma and hence they are very accurate and they give a psychological assurance to the customer. But they have to wait exactly 15 minutes their turn will come and this helps them attain a sense of time for the wait that there is to be.?

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• Communicate with the customer- as we know that communication is key and in the Department of Services things happen and delays are inevitable and most customers are understanding and forgiving. So, if we are able to communicate to them and it also is our moral responsibility, the respect that we have for our customers, that everyone's time is valuable. By giving the customer an idea about how long the wait will be, we should also apologize for the delay and we should also show them respect for their time by letting them know all these things we are valuing the time that they are giving to us, and by this respect shown, a personal moral generates a positive interaction and hence this positivity, even though coming from a negative effect, can help you in business going ahead.?

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• Pleasurable waiting area-?a pleasurable waiting area. Is a place where you can accommodate your guests while they wait. Although it is a quick-service restaurant, often people have to wait so the area where they have to wait should be very comfortable.?If someone is required to wait for a service, they should have at least a comfortable place to sit. Other things like reception areas in waiting rooms should be clean, well maintained, and aesthetically pleasing, crowded and noisy waiting rooms can agitate customers and not prepare them well for a good service experience. People don't like to have to look for a seat, and customers often spread out so they have plenty of seating. Make sure the waiting area is able to accommodate. More people than would be waiting at any one time. Also, while waiting for food, you can have activities like mini-games, some puzzles, some TV entertainment going on so that people don't realize how much time they waited and if in any case or any scenario you are making them wait?a little while longer, they do not realize it and they stick to your restaurant as while waiting they are having an enjoyable time and after that, they're getting food!?

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• Service Recovery - As with any bad customer experience, employees should be equipped and able to perform service recovery and make things right for the customer. This can be as simple as a heartfelt apology and as complex as writing off a part or all of the bill. I've had restaurants right off a portion of the bill. For long waits or poor food quality too often organizations get so wrapped up in performing the service that they lose sight of the service experience. Hence now might be a good time to assist the services that we are providing and also equip our staff with proper training so that they can deliver and accommodate these grievances.?

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Here’s how many Big QSR’s are trying to reduce their service timing?

• McDonald's drive-thru times are getting shorter as the fast-food giant invests in speed. CEO Steve Easterbrook said McDonald's drive-thru times dropped by 20 seconds over the most recent quarter in a call with investors on Tuesday. In July, Easterbrook had announced a decline in wait times, including a 15-second year-over-year drop in the month of June. The announcements indicate a reversal of a years-long trend at McDonald's. In 2019, the average drive-thru time at McDonald's was 284 seconds (about 4 and a half minutes), or almost five minutes, according to QSR Magazine's annual Drive-Thru Performance Study. The figure represented an increase of almost 11 seconds over last year's average time.?
• KFC India announced the launch of a new campaign for their 'Express Pick-up' service with PT Usha. The 'Taste Amaze, Mile Tez!' film opens with two customers walking into a KFC restaurant and reading about the seven minutes Express Pick-up promise. Not quite believing it, they joke about how the order must be prepared by Usha. The Colonel then blows a whistle to signal the start of the seven-minute timer, and the chicken is cooked in the kitchen, going through various processes before being packed and ready to be picked up by customers. It's hard to believe when the order is delivered to the consumers by none other than PT Usha herself. KFC India's chief marketing officer, Moksh Chopra, stated, "Who better to represent our new Express Pick up service than the icon PT Usha, who exemplifies all things fast. PT Usha doubles as a high-speed chef in the KFC kitchen in the film, with the Colonel cheering her on. Our 7-minute promise is a major differentiator, ensuring that the item is delivered as quickly as possible. So, PT Usha bana rahi hai, get ready to give in to your KFC cravings in just seven minutes!"?

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Hence the companies go above and beyond to show the world that they are the fastest in this fast-paced world, they are increasing expenditures in improving their supply chains, their internal operations and spending millions on such advertisements to grab that Lion’s share of the market nevertheless taking in such big celebrities to personify speed as their characteristic. Also, a service is always tested on what it is delivering, and hence if said service is able to do so with the promised outcome no other service can beat it!?

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