Elevation Burger is an American fast-casual restaurant chain that specializes in organic hamburgers. The company originated in Falls Church, Virginia, in the Washington Metropolitan Area. They have over 40 locations operating in the United States, Bahrain, Kuwait & Qatar.

Challenge

During the pandemic, off-premises features like drive-thru have become essential for maintaining customer loyalty. Elevation Burger’s challenge was to make its drive-thru run like clockwork even during rush hour, because nothing spoils the drive-thru experience as much as waiting a long time.

Managing drive-thru orders and determining the number of cards waiting in line or parking needed major improvement.

Elevation Burger was looking for a solution that would automate queue management and streamline its drive-thru service. An essential part of the solution would be license plate recognition and detection of client cars in the parking lot.

Another goal was to tightly integrate TRASSIR with the restaurant's existing POS system to maintain a familiar interface while adding new functionality.

Solution:

Together with TRASSIR’s partner Blatean Security Solutions, Elevation Burger has deployed a video surveillance system based on the Neurostation Compact RE and modern camera TR-D2253WDZIR7. As for software, the License Plate Recognition (LPR) module of the TRASSIR video analytics suite was implemented. The system detects each car’s license plate, associates it with an order, and locates the car in the parking lot when waiting to be served. Everything is done using the existing interface, so no additional training is required.

Result:

A potential threat to customer loyalty – waiting in the parking lot for orders –was mitigated using the implemented solution. Now staff know exactly where the customer’s car is located in the parking lot and promptly deliver the order. As a result, customers are no longer discouraged by long lines at the drive-thru during rush hour and are therefore much more likely to turn to the drive-thru lane to order their meal.

Benefits:

The solution significantly reduced the average time of serving customers in the parking lot.

The solution also increased customer loyalty and the number of return customers.

The number of incorrect orders dropped to zero.

Perspective:

Elevation Burger is now planning to scale up this solution in other restaurants across Kuwait.

In the future, the solution can also provide data to analyze the percentage of return customers, visit frequency, and other statistics to improve customer service and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

The system can also be integrated with the loyalty program when customers are automatically identified by license plate instead of store cards, thus reducing coronavirus risks.