On the other hand this should work for McDonalds, where nobody's expecting friendliness or much of anything; it's basically a feed trough.
When I'm on my way to work and a drive-through saves me 30-40 seconds compared to what it did last year, I appreciate that. I'm often rushed in the morning.
I suspect that this is largely pretend savings. Since locations are pressured to game this metric, for any order that they think might take too much longer than the median drive-thru time, they will (1) send customers from the drive-thru line to a parking spot then (2) bring their food out 5-10 minutes later. This can easily double customer wait time, and the food is often noticeably worse for the delay. It's a terrible customer experience.
So one day, i asked the dairlyand rep why...he told me someone figured out they could save 1¢ per bucket by removing the handle...this added up to millions of dollars a year....
Yes decisions like this are made on the basis of mere cents that add up to millions...
>In 2019 the average McDonald's drive-thru took six minutes and 18 seconds, but recently the company trimmed that to five minutes and 49 seconds in 2020,
I mean i guess if you're in accounting and your sole goal is to make sure you've saved every penny possible then yeah i suppose trimming drive thru time down by around 30-40 seconds must seem like the golden age...and i guess in the next 5 years, automation will save the mcdonalds corp another minute or two and increase their profits by a few million and their board will be happy.