Drive-Thru Speed of Service Analytics
Savi
If you run more than a handful of drive-thru locations, you already know your speed of service numbers are wrong. Not fake, just incomplete. A timer at the menu board and a timer at the window tell you two data points on a lane with a dozen places things can go sideways. Drive-thru speed of service analytics from Savi close that gap, showing you exactly where a car sat still and for how long, at every site, every daypart, every lane position.
See how Savi works, request a demo and get a walkthrough of your own drive-thru data before you commit to anything.
The problem: you're managing speed of service with half the picture
Most multi-unit operators still measure drive-thru speed with point timers bolted onto the menu board and the window. That tells you total time, but not where the time went. Was it order-taking? Payment? A backed-up kitchen? A single car blocking the lane behind a stalled vehicle? Without lane-level video and analytics, every slow ticket gets the same generic explanation: "we were busy."
That ambiguity has a real cost. Savi's Drive-Thru Disruptors research, based on an analysis of 250,000+ customer reviews, found that drive-thru sentiment impacts 73% of a restaurant's overall review score, and 62% of consumers rank the drive-thru experience as a top factor in where they choose to eat. For sub-500-unit chains, the report found that even minor drive-thru improvements delivered a 12 to 18% boost in overall ratings. As Savi CEO Brock Weeks puts it, "Drive-thrus aren't just a revenue channel, they're the frontline of brand loyalty." Speed of service isn't a back-office metric. It's a guest-facing one, and operators who can't see it clearly can't fix it.
Savi's solution: speed of service analytics tied to real video
Savi's Drive-Thru Analytics module pairs your existing drive-thru cameras with AI that times every stage of the lane automatically, order, pay, present, and pull-away, and rolls it up by site, daypart, and lane position. Instead of a single average speed number, ops leaders get a breakdown that shows which shift, which site, and which segment of the lane is actually driving the slowdown, with the video clip to confirm it.
This is drive-thru speed of service analytics built for operators managing dozens or hundreds of locations at once, not a single-site kiosk report. You see the pattern across the portfolio, not just the outlier.
How it works
Savi connects to the cameras you already have. There's no rip-and-replace. Each site comes online with a credit-card-sized edge device that syncs footage and analytics to the cloud, so you don't need a construction crew or a new POS integration to get started.
From there, the platform automatically segments drive-thru activity into timed stages, flags lanes that are trending slower than baseline, and surfaces the specific clips behind the numbers. Regional and operations leaders get a single cloud dashboard across every location instead of pulling reports site by site. Multi-unit operators use this same drive-thru speed of service analytics view to run coaching conversations, staffing adjustments, and layout changes off real data instead of gut feel.
Proof: this shows up in real speed numbers
Swig, a fast-growing dirty soda chain, uses Savi's Drive-Thru Analytics and saw a 7 to 10% improvement in drive-thru speed, and avoided $4,000 to $6,000 per location in loop-timer installs, an estimated $1.1M for its franchisees. Swig COO Chase Wardrop said it plainly: "Last month we had our fastest drive-thru speeds ever." He also noted, "Savi's drive-thru analytics have helped Swig get ground-breaking insights without breaking ground at any of our sites."
That last point matters for any operator evaluating vendors. No construction, no new hardware standard, no site-by-site rebuild. Just analytics layered onto what's already installed.
The same cloud video dataset that powers drive-thru speed analytics doesn't stop at speed of service. Once a site is online, that footage and data feed become the foundation for loss prevention, brand compliance checks, and training, all without touching the cameras again. Operations, loss prevention, and IT teams pull from the same underlying dataset instead of running separate systems, so a decision to deploy Savi for drive-thru speed today is really a decision about the operational infrastructure you'll be building on for years.
Key Takeaways
Point timers alone can't tell you why a lane is slow. Savi's analytics segment the lane into timed stages so you can see where time is lost.
Drive-thru speed of service directly shapes guest perception: it influences 73% of overall review scores per Savi's Drive-Thru Disruptors research.
Swig saw a 7 to 10% drive-thru speed improvement within 90 days and avoided an estimated $1.1M in loop-timer installs for its franchisees.
Savi works with your existing cameras through a credit-card-sized edge device, no rip-and-replace required.
One cloud video dataset serves drive-thru analytics today and loss prevention, compliance, and training tomorrow, without re-tooling sites.
Ready to see what's actually happening in your drive-thru lanes? Request a demo and Savi will walk through your own sites' speed of service data.
