2019 was a good year for Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) sales, with the highest guest check averages coming from new sales channels, according to Delaget’s 2019 QSR Operational Index. Based on data collected from 6,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S., the Index serves as a scorecard for operational health, focusing on key performance metrics for sales, costs, customer experience, fraud, and employee trends.
One key take-away from Delaget’s first annual Index is that counter sales dipped last year as customers took advantage of more ways to purchase including delivery, kiosks, and mobile and online ordering. Diners consistently spent more through these alternate channels than at the counter, with delivery leading the way with an average of 59.8% higher guest check.
The Index also found an overall decrease in drive-thru speed of service by 24 seconds YOY, clocking in at an average of 4 minutes and 5 seconds. This decrease is good news, as the study showed that improving drive-thru speed of service by 30 seconds correlates with improved customer satisfaction of 1.5%, which translates to about 2,600 more satisfied customers annually.
The 2019 QSR Operational Index reveals results and insights for 20 key performance metrics such as average revenue and transactions per store, overtime, turnover, refunds and cancels, customer satisfaction, and more.
“For more than 20 years, we’ve collected data from restaurant operators to help them run better operations through reporting and business intelligence tools,” says Delaget CEO Jason Tober. “Within a single operation, this data is a gold mine. But across several thousand restaurants, the data becomes even more rich, with the opportunity to benchmark performance and identify areas of improvement.”
Delaget plans to release the QSR Operational Index on an annual basis. “We’ve been sharing benchmark data with our customers for years, but it’s become more critical recently with the explosion in restaurant technology,” says Tober. “We’ve had such a strong, positive response from customers who found it useful in decision making, we decided to expand the scope and share the data and insights more broadly.”
