The fork in the road
The business leaders contended with operational questions that became deeply intertwined with branding decisions. They pondered things like site selection, targeting Shacks off major transit routes as opposed to city Shacks. It redesigned its kitchens to cook food more efficiently, and it created digital menu boards while streamlining its mobile app.
There were risks.
Controlling the customer experience in a drive-thru, where there are fewer opportunities for store employees to rectify customer concerns, posed a potential problem. Imagine a customer swiftly driving off after receiving the wrong order, only to later face disappointment and frustration that the brand can’t easily fix.
Then, there’s the question of timeliness. While many of its competitors prepare food in advance and keep it warm for patrons who roll through, Shake Shack makes every order fresh. That can result in longer wait times than consumers experience at other fast-food restaurants.
Consumers familiar with the brand expect that—perhaps prioritizing fresh food over a quick wait time. A drive-thru could, theoretically, encourage consumers to expect speediness. With longer-than-average wait times, vehicles in a drive-thru could back up and create a service bottleneck.
“It’s a tightrope. It’s a tough line to walk. But the reality is that this is something that businesses forever have contended with,” Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, told Adweek. “You realize that if you open up different channels that allow people to access you, you’re growing the business. You’re just multiplying the ways people can interact with your brand … but that comes with its own set of challenges.”
A word-of-mouth strategy
Understanding how to address each channel’s unique operational issues should be the brand’s priority, according to Chatterjee.
Livingston drew some inspiration from competitors like Chick-fil-A and In-N-Out that pioneered operating efficient drive-thrus. “We looked at things like how they do line busting within the drive-thru to have several points of contact, so the guests never feel like they’re waiting too long without some kind of touch,” he said.