Drive-thru Automation

Drive-thru windows became significantly more important for pharmacies, coffee shops, fast food restaurants, and other quick transaction retailers. Long queues are burdensome, and complicated by the credit card transactions required: identify yourself, hand the card over, get the card back with your signature, get the drugs/coffee/burger, etc. AI can make this process easier.

Pharmacy or fast food drive-thru services can be accelerated with license plate recognition. Customers can pre-order items with their smartphones, and when approaching the drive-thru window, staff can be automatically alerted about which customer is approaching. Staff can pre-prepare the orders and have the items waiting at the window as drivers pull up. Instead of a several-step process of verifying the customer, taking the payment, returning the card, then delivering the product, it's a simple single step: “smile, ask for the customer's name, and hand over the product.”

The drive-thru experience can be transformed with license plate recognition:

• Customers enjoy a smoother experience
• Customers can pre-order at their convenience via smartphone
• All transactions are handled without handing credit cards back and forth
• Overall throughput improves by at least 30%

The queue moves much faster by reducing the number of steps required for each customer. Accuracy is improved, credit cards are not dropped during the handover, there's no risk of card skimmers, and transactions can be tracked online in the mobile app for loyalty points, customizations, and other perks.