What Makes a Great Drive Through Digital Menu Board?

Drive-thru Digital Menu Boards

Drive by any quick-service restaurant and you will find an array of digital displays on pylons, in front of buildings, and at the drive-through entrance. Drive-through digital menu boards perform a similar mission as their indoor counterparts. They help customers discover and select from your food offerings based on the time of day or the location. They are also great for promoting limited-time offers (LTOs) and speeding up the order-taking process.

Drive-through digital menu boards offer a big improvement over traditional backlit printed signage. They can screen animated content and dynamically updated pricing with minimal effort. The information shown on drive-through menu signs is retrieved directly from the restaurant’s point-of-sale system.

The benefits? Customers always see the most up-to-date information. Prices are always accurate, and out-of-stock items are automatically removed reducing confusion and ordering times.

Features that improve performance

You evaluate a restaurant’s drive-through performance based on the number of cars served per hour. Digital menu boards for drive-throughs are proven to increase the number of customers that are served in any given period. This has a direct impact on your bottom line because drive-through menu boards for restaurants let you process more orders each day.

The drive-through also offers a great opportunity to upsell. With big bold animated content, drive-through menu boards entice customers with mouth-watering images and videos of the food they crave.

Customers have plenty of time to think about which items to order while they are sitting in their cars and waiting in line. It’s the perfect opportunity to screen high-margin items, like sides and specialty drinks. You can even use video and animation to highlight these items and see your profits soar.

Features that improve efficiency

Drive-through digital menu boards help boost productivity across the entire operation. Drive-through staff can process orders faster and there are fewer mistakes. Promotions and limited-time offers are always displayed on time and removed as soon as they expire. Prices are automatically updated via integrations with point-of-sale and inventory management systems. Staff members can spend more time on food preparation so quality and volume are improved.

Digital signage is the fastest and most cost-effective way to improve your restaurant’s efficiency.

Why have drive-throughs become so popular?

During the Covid pandemic, restaurants have had to change their processes to comply with evolving health and safety rules. In many cases, indoor dining was also banned so restaurants quickly expanded their drive-through and delivery services to serve their customers.

This has led to explosive growth in drive-through menu board systems. Many restaurants that didn’t previously consider digital signage in the past have since embraced the technology and the trend is far from over.

With the global health crisis entering its third year, restaurant chains are increasingly looking to redesign their stores to meet new customer behaviors. Many chains are planning to reduce their indoor dining spaces and add an extra drive-through capacity with more lanes and innovative ordering options. It’s another reason why drive-through digital menu boards have become essential to every restaurant’s success.

Which features should you look for in a drive-through digital signage system?

Look for user-friendly digital signage CMS software that lets quick-service restaurants deploy effective drive-through menu boards without the need for specialized training. The kind of software that would feature an intuitive content manager so you can realize the full value of your digital signage investment. This way you can easily set up new menu items, specials, and advertising messages with no special skills.

You should also look for other useful features that let you take advantage of data-driven content. For example, professional drive-through software platforms let you dynamically present relevant and targeted messaging to your drive-through customers. You can leverage these technologies to trigger promotional ads and related product offerings based on real-time events, such as current local weather, product availability, or drive-through traffic levels.

When used in combination with computer vision technologies, the drive-through menu board software can scan vehicle license plates and recognize return customers. It can also trigger content that is more relevant based on prior orders. Imagine being offered your preferred meal on every visit or seeing a special offer for an item you truly crave.

The digital signage content manager

Use your digital signage software’s dayparting feature to promote snacks and side items in between meals, or instantly trigger new products and promotions during rush periods.

When comparing different solutions, look for digital signage CMS software that features a user-friendly screen layout tool. Some layout design tools let you create designs for individual or multiple screens and the best solutions also support different screen orientations.

Look for a solution that is easily scalable so you can deploy signs in any number of locations knowing the software can handle the traffic with ease. The more powerful solutions will support content delivery across an entire restaurant chain or let you target individual locations with timely and relevant content.

About Navori Labs

Navori Labs software includes everything you need to create, deploy, and play any type of digital signage content on any screen. Many popular restaurant chains rely on Navori to power their in-store and exterior digital signage screens. Navori delivers all the features and performance restaurant owners need for their drive-through signage.

Want to power your restaurant’s drive-thru digital menu boards with the industry’s best digital signage platform? Click here for more information.