Dairy Queen’s AI Drive-Thru Actually Works | Fast Five Shorts
This Omni Talk Retail Fast Five segment explores Dairy Queen’s expansion of voice AI ordering technology at the drive-thru.
Chris Walton and Shelley Huff discuss why this may be one of the best real-world applications of AI in retail so far and how it could improve both customer experience and employee productivity. They also explain why this technology is only going to get better from here.
⏩ Tune in for the full episode here.
#DairyQueen #VoiceAI #ArtificialIntelligence #RestaurantTechnology
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Transcript
Dairy Queen is expanding its Voice AI pilot at the drive thru, partnering with Presto Phoenix to deploy the technology beyond its corporate test stores and into select franchisee locations across at least 25 US states and Canadian provinces.
Speaker A:According to Chain Store Age.
Speaker A:American Dairy Queen Corporation tested Presto's Voice AI at company owned stores where it improved customer satisfaction scores by double digit percentages.
Speaker A:Presto Phoenix says its AI system can accurately process about 90% of orders at the drive thru.
Speaker A:Kevin Bartman, EVP of IT at Dairy Queen, cited improved order accuracy and the ability to free staff for high value tasks as key outcomes of the initial tests.
Speaker A: eventually Deploy across all: Speaker A:Chris, is drive thru voice AI finally ready for prime time?
Speaker A:Or is Dairy Queen in danger of getting too far in front of the hype?
Speaker B:Ooh, ooh.
Speaker B:I can't wait to hear what you have to say about this.
Speaker B:Like, I kind of knew where you're gonna go on the first three, but I have no idea what you think about this one.
Speaker B:Well, first of all, confession, Shelly.
Speaker B:I have this at my local Dairy Queen.
Speaker B:It is in operation at my local Dairy Queen.
Speaker B:And yes, Omnitok fans, I go to Dairy Queen every Tuesday after I take my son to his drum lesson practice.
Speaker B:Yes, it's like the standard place that we go and I gotta tell you, it works really, really, really well.
Speaker B:And I personally love the addition.
Speaker B:Now granted, I'm kind of a, you know, I kind of focus on this stuff for a living.
Speaker B:So I'm a little, probably more, you know, accepting of it and tolerant of it.
Speaker B:But there's a number of things I like about it a lot.
Speaker B:Like for first, first you can hear it and you can understand it.
Speaker B:Like, as I'm sitting there at every drive thru, I'm always reminded of the old Saturday Night Live skit where they do the subway announcement in New York and everyone's standing on the platform and they're like, what?
Speaker B:I can't hear them.
Speaker B:And they go inside where the people are making the announcements and they all talk to each other like, you know, and, and that's because that's what it's like when you go to a drive thru.
Speaker B:It's hard to hear.
Speaker B:So like that, that's gone.
Speaker B:Like, it is crisp, clean, very well done, very professional sounding.
Speaker B:Second, it is amazing that it reacts to you and knows to ask you questions about things to make sure your order is right.
Speaker B:Which is, which is really impressive.
Speaker B:When you think about it, you have to be a, you have to be a little slow to like make sure that it's hearing you right and you don't want to speak too fast, but you know, once you just let it do its thing, it's great.
Speaker B:And the first few times I went through the other thing I'll say is I said to my family, I was like, is that AI?
Speaker B:And we weren't really sure.
Speaker B:We weren't really sure.
Speaker B:And now having gone through it enough, I know that it is.
Speaker B:And now that they're doing this, it a hundred percent is.
Speaker B:But in all actuality, the bar for improvement on what we're talking about here in my mind is so low that I think this will make it better.
Speaker B:And the last point is, and this could just be a sample size of 1, but the service at the Dairy Queen is much better.
Speaker B:I pull up to the window, the service is better.
Speaker B:The quality of the food is better too.
Speaker B:And I have no idea if that's related, but I have to think it helps because the people that are actually working there can focus on the things that make service, you know, that bring about good service and bring about good quality food versus having to haggle and order with people that have pulled their cars through the drive through with 16 kids in Tower.
Speaker B:So anyway, that's my take, Shelly, but I'm dying to hear what you think about this one.
Speaker B:Are you in on this or no?
Speaker A:Oh yeah.
Speaker A:I think this is a perfect application for AI when you, when we're talking about customer service where there's a finite number of menu items and a finite number of questions that could potentially be asked around those items and permutations of that.
Speaker A:And we have to remember you had a great experience and this is the worst the technology is ever going to be.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So this is a perfect application, customer service replacing a person, freeing up staff to really focus on the face to face interaction.
Speaker A:And this is the best application of it I've seen in the food industry.
Speaker A:I think we can all remember was it like last year or two years ago where Chick Fil A put up customer service screens in their drive thru with like a person sitting on their couch remotely taking your order like that just wasn't a great experience at all.
Speaker A:So I think this is a retailer or, or you know, a fast food retailer doing this incredibly well.
Speaker A:And I don't think that they're going to be obviously the last.
Speaker B:Yeah, and it seems like a trend too.
Speaker B:It seems like, you know, we, we're seeing other, even this week.
Speaker B:Other companies jump into this too, and make announcements to the same degree.
Speaker B:So it seems like there's a there there, and we're gonna see more of it.
Speaker B:And, you know, if.
Speaker B:If it plays out like this.
Speaker B:That's a great point too.
Speaker B:Like, I never thought about that.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's the best the technology is right now, but it's not gonna be the best it ever is.
Speaker B:And so as they learn to do this across more retailers, it's gonna be interesting to Watch or more QSRs.
