Wendy's Is Appointing Robots To Take Your Food From Kitchen To Car
Aiming to innovate drive-thru services even further, Wendy's has just unveiled especially exciting plans to serve its Spicy Chicken Sandwiches, Baconators, and the rest of your favorites even faster with the help of robots. Partnering with Pipedream, an Austin-based hyper logistics company, the fast food giant is on its way to integrating an Instant Pickup system where robotic assistants deliver orders, meaning that neither workers nor customers ever have to step foot outside again.
As for what exactly the new delivery system will entail, the process is quite straightforward. After the customer places a drive-thru order through the portal's speaker, they'll be directed to park in a designated spot. Once the customer's order has been prepared by the kitchen, an autonomous robot will collect the order. Navigating through a series of underground tunnels — a feature touted for its safety — the robot will eventually deposit the order in the portal location, which is conveniently located on the driver's side of the customer's car. No matter the wait (although it shouldn't be long), customers can be sure food is at its freshest since robots will also use temperature-controlled technology during delivery.
Revolutionizing the drive-thru experience, yet again
Expected to roll out later this year into an existing restaurant location, the news of integrating Pipedream's Instant Pickup system comes just shortly after the fast food chain announced its plan to incorporate AI technology into its drive-thru systems to improve efficiency and guarantee better customer experience. This new, robot-led delivery system continues to underline the importance of streamlining operations, keeping drive-thru lines short and, evidently, keeping more customers happy — all with the help of technology.
"We know that serving orders quickly and accurately leads to increased customer satisfaction," explained U.S. Chief Operations Officer at Wendy's, Deepak Ajmani. "Pipedream's Instant Pickup system has the potential to unlock greater mobile order speed of service and accuracy, enabling us to consistently deliver hot and fresh Wendy's products to our fans."
Appealing to customers' preferences and desire for more optimized drive-thru systems, it's only natural that Wendy's is investigating ways to meet delivery needs in a timely manner. While this is surely just one of the ways that fast food chains like Wendy's will continue to use tech to their advantage, we're curious to see what else the future holds, and how these new services will compare to the methods that we've long since known.