Mobile Order and Pay – I’m On The Way!

Mobile Order and Pay – I’m On The Way!

As fast as fast food can be, companies and customers want it faster.  Many restaurants boast quick service, but you always see long lines at rush hour times. In an attempt to combat this, several companies in Canada have started to offer customers the ability to place their order and even pay ahead of time through their mobile app bypassing long order lines.  Local tech blogger Kevin Andrews is with us this morning to talk more about this new “mobile order and pay” option.


So how does mobile order and pay work?

Gone are the days of waiting in line and using your phone or watch to pay. There now seems to be a new trend moving within the fast food service chain whereby you can actually use your phone to order and pay before you leave your house so when you get to the establishment, you can bypass the wait lines and pick it up as soon as you arrive. Right now, if you have a mobile phone and their app, most Starbucks locations have started this new tech trend here in Canada and it looks like Tim Hortons, McDonald’s and Burger King are soon going to follow suit.


Have you tried this yourself and if so what has been your experience?

I have at Starbucks and there is no question it can be a faster and a more convenient way to get your hot beverage when you’re in a rush. You can either go into the store or pick it up or through the drive thru. It does make you feel kind of awkward walking in and seeing a long order line that you just bypass as your is there order waiting for you at the pickup counter. I have gotten several strange stares from people in the past.


Are you finding wait lines for mobile pay and pickup?

After you make your purchase using the Starbucks app it does suggest how long it will take  (usually 5-10 mins) and if you can coordinate that time with your commute time it’s as easy as walking in and picking up your order; provided many others are not doing the same. That said, I’ve heard in larger cities at peak busy times you might run into wait lines as well and I think once this method of mobile pay and pickup becomes more popular you will probably see wait lines as well; though I would still think it to be a faster method to get your order since you just have to pick up and not order. It will have to come down to the establishment being able to handle mobile orders.


How do you see this working for other places?

It will be  to see how it works for places like Tim Hortons or McDonalds that can get very busy certain times of the day. Kevin Johnson, Starbucks’ president and upcoming CEO, said the spike in mobile orders caused incoming customers who were not using this new method of pay to leave their stores once they saw larger than normal numbers of people crowded around their pick up counters and for them the long lines around their pick-up counters did affect their sales so places like Tim Hortons,  who will see high volumes of people will probably end up with longer than normal lines at their pickup counter when this service becomes active (right now it is estimated sometime at the end of this month this service may become available at Tim’s locations) I know for Tims, this mobile feature was initially planned to come out in January of this year but many franchise owners wanted it delayed so their stores could be fully prepared to handle it.


So, what’s your bottom line here?

I highly doubt there will be a new pickup counters and drive thru lanes designed for mobile pay and pickup customers yet but if this trend takes off , which looks likely, you might just see a complete re-structuring of how people pick up and pay for their food sometime in the near future.

thedigitalteacher

 

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