Average Drive-Thru Visit Is the Fastest Since 2018, Intouch Insight’s 26th Annual Drive-Thru Study Finds
Ottawa, Ontario, Oct. 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intouch Insight Ltd. (TSXV: INX) (OTCQX: INXSF) (“Intouch” or the “Company”), a provider of customer experience management solutions, today announced the release of its 26th Annual Drive-Thru Study, conducted in partnership with QSR Magazine. The study found that the average drive-thru visit took 5 minutes and 24 seconds in 2026, 11.1 seconds faster than in 2025 and the fastest average total time the study has recorded since 2018.
Nearly all the improvement came from service time, the stretch from placing an order to leaving with it, which fell 10.3 seconds to 4:04. Faster handoffs at the pickup window accounted for most of that gain, with window time down 7.5 seconds to 1:40. The average visit is now 58 seconds shorter than the study’s 2021 peak of 6:22.
Speed remains a priority for guests. Asked to name the most important factor in a drive-thru visit, 38.4% of shoppers chose speed of service, followed by order accuracy at 28.4%.
“The average drive-thru visit is now almost a minute shorter than it was at the 2021 peak,” said Sarah Beckett, Vice President, Sales & Marketing at Intouch Insight. “What stands out this year is how closely the human side of the visit tracks with satisfaction. Speed gets guests through the lane, but a friendly, clear interaction is often what shapes how they feel about the visit afterward.”
Friendly Service Coincided with Higher Satisfaction
Staff friendliness showed one of the clearest links in the study to how shoppers felt about their visit, rating the service friendly on 79% of visits. On those visits, 98.6% of shoppers were satisfied and 86.5% said they would recommend the location. When service was rated not friendly, satisfaction dropped to 26.8% and willingness to recommend fell to 19.6%. Even neutral service came with a noticeable dip, with satisfaction at 83.0%.
The gap extended well beyond satisfaction. Orders were accurate on 91.3% of friendly visits, compared with 73.2% when service was not friendly, and friendly visits averaged 5:16 in total time, compared with 5:41. Shoppers rated their order good or excellent value on 58.6% of friendly visits, compared with 21.4% when service was not friendly.
“Friendliness is sometimes treated as a nice-to-have, but in this study it showed up alongside almost every result guests care about, from getting the right order to feeling they got good value,” Beckett said. “The range we saw between brands also shows it isn’t a fixed trait of the category. At the top end, friendly service was recorded on more than nine in ten visits, which shows what consistent execution can look like.”
Voice AI Is Performing Better, but Remains Rare at the Drive-Thru
Voice AI ordering performed better in 2026 than in 2025. At locations running the technology, orders were accurate on 90.8% of visits, up from 82.5% a year earlier, and the share of shoppers who had to repeat part of their order fell to 29.1% from 34.2%. Service at those locations was rated friendly on 77.5% of visits, up from 70.8%. That improvement moved AI-enabled locations ahead of the same brands in the main study on order accuracy, 90.8% compared with 86.7%, after trailing them in 2025.
Those gains have yet to translate into broad exposure for guests. Across the 2,145 visits in the main study, a voice AI took some or all of the order on 36, fewer than 2%. Even the most common form of automation, an automated greeting followed by an employee taking the order, occurred on just 77 visits.
About the Study
Intouch Insight mystery shoppers completed 165 visits at each of 13 quick-service brands, for 2,145 visits in total, across the United States between June and July 2026. Visits took place at various times of day and days of the week. Brands were grouped into three segments: Classic (Arby’s, Burger King, McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Wendy’s), Chicken (Chick-fil-A, KFC, Popeyes and Raising Cane’s) and Beverage (Dunkin’, Dutch Bros, Starbucks and Tim Hortons). A separate sample of 120 visits at Burger King, Taco Bell and Wendy’s locations reported to be running voice AI ordering evaluated the technology using the same questionnaire.
Download the 26th Annual Drive-Thru Study: https://www.intouchinsight.com/resources/studies/drive-thru/.
About Intouch Insight
Intouch Insight is a customer experience (CX) solutions company, specializing in helping multi-location brands achieve operational excellence and exceed customer expectations. The Company provides mystery shopping, operational audits, and customer feedback software to over 300 of the world’s most beloved brands.
For more information, visit intouchinsight.com.
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