Faster Food

Order at a drive-through, and there's a chance--a small but growing chance--that the voice coming back through the speaker is miles, or even states, away. Fast food has met the call center, and for that you can thank Steve Bigari, a McDonald's franchisee and part-time inventor in Colorado Springs, Colo. For the past two years, customers at seven of his restaurants have chatted with call-center workers across town who key in orders and then shoot them back to the restaurant, where computer monitors tell the grill guy what to grill, a drinks-and-fries person what else to grab and the window worker which car gets the bag. That division of labor lets in-store employees focus on food prep, says Bigari, 45, and makes for faster, friendlier service. A survey taken a year after the call center went live found that drive-through time decreased by more than a minute; friendliness, as measured by a series of questions to customers, jumped 11%; employee turnover dropped by half; and order mistakes were virtually wiped out.

Sure, it sounds a little kooky, but the idea is spreading. Bigari's call center has handled orders from franchisees in Minnesota and Missouri, though the operator in Missouri now uses his own call center, as does another franchisee in California. Corporate McDonald's is running tests, and so is Hardee's, which hopes to eventually route all calls from restaurants in Hispanic areas to bilingual call takers and possibly even let operators telecommute from home. --By Barbara Kiviat