A “drive-through” is a type of service provided by a business such as, for example, fast-food restaurant, bank, pharmacy, and coffee shop that permits a customer to purchase a product without leaving their vehicle. Such drive-through services provides the customer with fast and convenient service while increasing the number of customers that may be served through conventional walk-in transactions. Orders can be generally placed utilizing a microphone and picked up in person at the window. As the order is being placed, an order-taker enters the order information into an order management system. The order information can be displayed on a display such that the order can be assembled by a runner.
Conventionally, ordering paradigms utilize a single-queue approach that makes the customers with small, quick orders wait behind the customers with large complex orders. The problem associated with such approach is that the vehicles can get out of order between the time the order is placed and the vehicle receives the product. Additionally, such prior art approaches does not ensure that the correct product is being delivered to the vehicle that placed the order which further reduces order accuracy and efficiency. Such problems are exacerbated in highly trafficked locations where multiple lanes of order placement exist for each order processing window which result in decreased customer satisfaction and significant loss of revenues.
Based on the foregoing, it is believed that a need exists for an improved system and method for providing signature based drive-through order tracking, as described in greater detail herein.