Productivity Pulse Episode 4

Hear directly from our experts—Sue, Simon, & James—who share real-world trends, new data findings, and actionable productivity insights. This month they are joined by special guest Ed Thompson 

We unpack how quick service restaurants (QSR) cut through rising costs and sharper peaks by separating delivery from dine‑in, scaling kiosks, and engineering seconds out of core tasks. Ed shares ground‑truth from trials that reveal hidden costs, smarter layouts, and why testing beats gut feel.

• Defining QSR and why delivery changed everything
• Price ceilings versus operational innovation
• Separating driver pickup to protect space and speed
• Hot hold units and lockers preserving food quality
• Kiosks driving consistent upsell and lower labour
• Loyalty and simple personalisation improving repeat visits
• Micro‑layout tweaks multiplying capacity gains
• Testing trials to surface hidden operational costs
• Moving tasks out of peak to protect throughput
• Staffing thresholds for sharper peaks and channel mix

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Intro
• 0:59 Why QSR Deserves Attention
• 3:49 The Delivery Channel Challenge
• 6:49 Separating Drivers From Customers
• 9:35 Tech Solutions: Hot Holds And Lockers
• 10:54 Rise Of Self‑Service Kiosks
• 13:19 Loyalty, Personalisation, And Upsell
• 15:24 Layout Tweaks And Micro‑Seconds
• 18:44 Testing, Trials, And Hidden Costs
• 22:04 Peaks, Staffing, And Moving Tasks
• 25:39 Final Reflections And Upcoming Events

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:05

Welcome to the Productivity Pulse. This is episode number four, and as ever, Sue and James are back with me, and we have a very special guest today. Star of the recently published miniseries with Simon Woodfield around MTM. Ed Thompson. Hi Ed, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Hi, Simon. Nice to be on a uh on another podcast. Yeah. I'm looking forward to getting my uh IMDB page all set up as a uh rising podcast star.

SPEAKER_02: 0:32

And Rotten Tomatoes, maybe. Yeah, that's the one. You never know. Uh hi Sue. Hi James, welcome back. Hey.

SPEAKER_04: 0:40

Hello. I need to get Ed's agent. He's way ahead of me in this problem.

SPEAKER_02: 0:44

I know, it's just on me thinking. So you're gonna lead this one, James. I'm gonna I'm gonna take a back seat today and I'll be back at the end. So Productivity Pulse episode four. Over to you, James Well.

SPEAKER_04: 0:55

Yeah, and I mean, Ed, you're here because we're specifically going to talk about QSR because it's um kind of an interesting sector that we've been doing a lot of work in, and we think there's some some interesting lessons. I mean, Sue, from your point of view, kind of how do you introduce the the QSR sector and why do you think it's it's worthy of talking about?

SPEAKER_00: 1:15

Well, QSR, first of all, quick serve restaurants. So it's everywhere where they do takeaway is it's your grab lunch type outlets. So it's been really a highly innovative sector. It's been growing, and partly it's growing because of new channels, new delivery channels. So whether it's delivery or the other things, as well as sometimes people having their own delivery channels as well. So as well as people coming into the restaurant to either order food and take it away, then they might pre-order that. They there'll be you know delivery drivers and riders coming in to pick up food. So that's that's kind of quite an innovation in terms of how they get their product for their actual end end users, the people that eat the product. Um and then there's been a lot of innovation behind the scenes, and a lot of this has been driven by the fact that the same challenges that a lot of other businesses are facing are affecting QSR quick surf restaurants as well. So, you know, people are more expensive to the various either inflation, more than inflation pay rises that's been happening because the typical, typically sort of minimum wage or thereabouts environments, there's also been the higher tax, the national insurance rates that's applying to the employers as well. And there's also been inflation costs in terms of the raw ingredients and the products that they're using as well. So this is a sector that's had all those challenges that everywhere else is happening and has found some really interesting way to deal with it, and uh nobody's been closer to it than really in terms of getting down into the nitty-gritty of what they've been doing.

SPEAKER_04: 3:01

That's great. And you know, this is a sector that's relatively price sensitive. I mean, would would the re would the would the QSR restaurants just be able to raise their prices or is that gonna be an issue, do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 3:13

I think there has been there has been inflation in food prices generally. However, with everything, there's having people hit a barrier of how much to pay for their how much or to pay for their you know their their food that they're grabbing and going. So yeah, there's there's a price ceiling. And there will have been price innovation behind the scenes. I guess what we'll see more is what's the operational impact of what the what the business is doing to manage along those costs.

SPEAKER_04: 3:43

Brilliant. Thank you, Sue. And and in in respect of that, Ed, I mean Sue talked about delivery and drivers it being in this in the store and so on, customers getting their food in different ways. Um, is that something you've seen on the on the projects you've been involved in?

SPEAKER_01: 3:59

Definitely, and the more recent ones. So anything from 2020 onwards is where you've seen the real growth of delivery channels and the diversification of it as well. So it's not just a singular channel anymore. There's three main ones in the UK that I can think of. There's similar abroad. I know Spain is quite heavy in terms of the sales volume they drive through through delivery drivers and delivery orders. And it does put an entirely different challenge on a restaurant that's not necessarily laid out to deal with a lot of drivers turning up in a small amount of time in terms of the the window that they're all picking up their order and then leaving again. Yeah, the the footprints of the restaurants and the layouts haven't changed much. They are primarily there for you to go up to a counter, place your order, collect it quickly, and either leave the restaurant or or go and sit down and eat it. And the delivery drivers do almost a tiny amount of that journey, but there's a lot more of them and it's a lot more frequent. And you don't want to have them waiting in that space that's customer space, if you like, because it just creates a big backlog in that area and actually limits the space that they're able to use to then serve customers that are sitting down in that restaurant and wanting a bit of a different experience versus versus the drivers. So that's been one of the the challenges we've we've seen, like I say, last couple of years, but definitely from 2020.

SPEAKER_04: 5:38

Yeah, and from a from a customer experience point of view, I can think of many different quick serve restaurants where I've been present and delivery drivers have walked straight past me to to find food when I've been waiting in a queue, or you know, there's been a big, big gang of them around around a certain part of the restaurant, it's been difficult to get in or an unpleasant experience. So it's kind of from I I think I think a lot of listeners will will you know sympathise with that experience and have had similar, but from a productivity point of view, is it you know just about trying to get those drivers out of the out of the space where the where the customers are trying to queue and eat, or i it is there something else that that these organizations are are doing to try and make that less of an issue?

SPEAKER_01: 6:23

That's been the the sort of main approach is to almost separate that channel out, and it's got two benefits. So that number one benefit is on the customer's experience side, where it does it separates them out from the front of house area that customers use and put them into a delivery drivers-only area so that they've got a clear channel, they know where to go, they know where to pick the food up from, and it's not impacting any other journeys that are going on within the restaurant. But it's also had a secondary benefit of if your layouts correct back of house, you can create a bit more space for customer orders and create less confusion as well. So again, 2020 was the prime example where there were you go into a QSR restaurant and there might be 10, 15, 20 orders all pre-prepared or left on a back counter, waiting for drivers to come and pick them up. Now that's one confusion if you're a colleague, because you've got to look through and find the right order and match it up to the number that the drivers are showing you. So there's a chance that you get meals mixed up there between drivers, but it also decreases the quality of the food the customer will be receiving. If you think if you're ordering from a restaurant, it's been sitting on a worktop for five minutes, it's already colder than it would be if the driver was able to just come in, pick it up, and take it, and then it's got the journey from restaurant to house or or workplace that that driver's going to make where it the quality goes down again. And if you look on Google and go on maps and look at the reviews, a lot of the times the negative reviews are around delivery orders being placed and arriving either late or or or cool. And it's not necessarily to do with the restaurant directly, but it's obviously having an impact on them having to deal with the negative reviews. So they they take it out, put it in a separate section where you can put a hot hold unit in. You can keep the quality of the food better for longer, you can separate out where the drivers are picking it up from, and you've got more space than back of house to keep your orders that are going straight out to a customer that's come into the restaurant to eat or collect it. So it's that that siloing out the channel has been a big piece of work for a lot of QSR restaurants.

SPEAKER_04: 8:56

And then the the tech has enabled that around kind of some some hot holds and lockers and that type of thing. It's kind of a fascinating mix of process and technology and people that kind of enables that change.

SPEAKER_01: 9:08

Yeah, yeah. And there's been in examples, we've seen the low-tech solutions where it is you still go through an employee to hand out the order, works really well. But we have seen examples where they're almost trialing the locker styles where it's almost contactless, and the driver comes in, scans their phone to get the order number, and the locker opens automatically. So there's a there's there's definitely different solutions out there with some being more technologically advanced than others, but it's all with the sort of same goal in mind.

SPEAKER_04: 9:40

Yeah, and listen, another area where technology has changed the experience in in my in my experience is I don't ever talk to a person anymore when I'm ordering in a QSR restaurant. I'm I'm always just using a self-served kiosk. Are they are they common now or is that just kind of uh peculiar to the to the few restaurants that I go to?

SPEAKER_01: 10:01

No, they're they're very common. Part of it has sprung from that labour cost and and the increase of needing somebody on that counter for the entire trading period is expensive, especially if you're going to be sort of underutilised for periods of the day where it's quieter. But the menus are also more complex than they used to be. And the different the number of different combinations of food and different deals you can get is quite a lot for somebody on a till to translate and get across to somebody who's who's potentially placing the order. What you'll notice when you're using the kiosk quickserves is that you will always get something upsold to you, whether you know about it at the time or not, there will always be a pop-up that says, Do you want to make it a meal? Do you want a drink? Do you want fries with that? And it will build that sort of experience up to make sure the customers are always being offered uh pretty much everything available to try and maximize that that transaction value, which historically is something that if you had colleagues on the on the till, that would be something that they will be managed really closely on to make sure that that upselling's happening throughout the customer journey. The kiosks allow allow for businesses to do that with without requiring somebody on the on the till 24-7 to be really skilled and and highly knowledgeable about the menu and and what can be offered to the customers.

SPEAKER_04: 11:37

That's fascinating. I hadn't thought about the value of that, but I guess you can ensure every customer is upsold with something if you're if you're doing it through a kiosk.

SPEAKER_01: 11:46

Yeah, yeah. It it gets that almost upsell percentage to as close as to 100% as you're going to be able to get. And I guess if there's a bit of a logic of everyone's walking in there with a set almost budget in mind, then it's how do you optimize it and get that almost biggest bang for the customer's book almost feeling for them?

SPEAKER_04: 12:09

Yeah, and if some of these restaurant chains will have loyalty schemes, I guess, and the offers can then be tailored. I mean, I heard there was a story ten years ago that restaurants in in Japan or or China would use facial recognition to try and guess who what type of person you were and make specific offers to you. Have we seen any evidence of offer personalization through kiosks? Is that something they can do through loyalty schemes?

SPEAKER_01: 12:33

There's certainly one chain in the UK that uses loyalty schemes to sort of personalise and tailor things. It's not as common in QSR as it is with, say, coffee chains. We've studied one in Europe recently where they're bigger into the loyalty schemes, and that's more around building points and for every X number of points or visits you get, then you get a product for free. We've uh that was the same chain over there where they had a scheme in place that if you were a member of the loyalty loyalty scheme, if your food was delayed by up to say two minutes, your next visit there would be, you'd you'd get a free item of food as well. So they they were almost going at it with with two different angles in in that one to make sure that the customer's experience was better as well, just all almost all the time that you're visiting the location if you've got a loyalty card versus if you hadn't.

SPEAKER_04: 13:37

That's great. I find it fascinating. Sue, I wanted to bring you in here really quickly if I can, because I know in um kind of family dining restaurants we've had clients in the past who've struggled with the notion of maybe putting payment terminals on the on the tables or using tech for orders because they worry about the the personal touch and the um the lack of upsell. But I think you've you've told a story before that that's not necessarily true. Actually, the technology can can help drive upsell and drive better experiences. I wonder if you want to kind of just generalize with with that before we move on to the next section.

SPEAKER_00: 14:09

Yes, when screens were first introduced into the UK, I remember one of the businesses that introduced them talking about the fact that actually their average sale value had gone up. Partly because people have a bit longer to decide. So you know, in if there's a big cue and you have to give your order quickly, if you're slightly dithering, you'll probably you know not order that extra whatever it is, whether it's the pudding or the the fancy milk trake or the whatever it is. Whereas actually when people have got longer to look at a screen, they've got longer to discuss those for the kids to talk them into it or whatever it is. So it's really interesting to see how it works. And if you look, you know, in March Suspenses where their cafes have got a typically an older demographic than you might see in some other QSR type settings. They you know they've got screens in there now. So you know, there's lots of um silver surfers using the kiosk. So it it really is widespread.

SPEAKER_04: 15:06

And as people get more used to it in more places, then they all become kind of more accepted and and more used. It's really really interesting to see this sector kind of at the forefront of that and driving some real change. And it's it's not just in terms of tech, is it, Ed? There's you know, when we think about uh the people we've worked with in the in the last couple of years in the QSR sector trying to drive um more customer value out of their resource, we've seen all types of things, haven't we, around kind of layout changes and task simplification. Like would you like to talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01: 15:40

Yeah, so if we start with layout, it there's been a bit of a again, it's come about from the cost of labour and the the cost of ingredients, is to make sure that they're maximizing throughput. So if you can make more of something in the same amount of time and become more efficient, then you're gonna generate more sales from that period of time that you've got. And it's about in this sector, especially, it's about seconds and fractions of seconds and making processes as simple as possible to be able to drive in that sort of activity. So, like if you take burger making as an example, it's very rare that it takes these restaurants anything over a minute to actually make and assemble a burger from start to finish. So when you're starting to look at ways that you can improve that that area's sort of layout to be able to enable you to increase your throughput, you are moving things centimetres close to people, or you're increasing capacities of units to make sure they hold more products and don't need to be replenished as often, or you're upgrading the technology that's already existing. So things like bread toasters. We've seen companies where they've trialed the toasters almost turning them up so the toast of bread quicker. But even things like what happens if you drop the crown of a burger and the base of a burger bun into two different different slots, and then when it comes out the bottom, you've not got to look and see which one's which and flip them the right way around. It's already done for you. You just almost grab them and and go and build on that from the next stage. So there's loads of work that places are doing to, like I say, make 10-15 seconds gain in some instances, but you multiply that by the amount of burgers the chain can make in in a day, and it becomes a big one, either cost saving or two, you increase the amount of customers that you can serve in that in that window of time.

SPEAKER_04: 17:53

That's great, and you know, every business, whether they're making burgers or or or selling widgets or whatever it might be, if there's something that happens thousands of times a day in their locations, then finding a slightly quicker way to do it yields huge benefits for them. Yeah. Oh god. No, I mean, because I was going to ask, because I know that we are we are seeing brands come to us and ask us to measure innovations they've come up with, aren't they? They're not just rolling them out and hoping for the best. I think is that another area where people can learn from QSR in terms of testing and and learning?

SPEAKER_01: 18:30

Yeah, I'd say so. So they're they're another sector that is really good at launching a trial of something in a set number of locations, and then we can go and measure those new processes and see what difference it makes to that process, see how if it's increased or or decreased productivity, but we can also see how it interacts with different areas of the of the restaurant as well. So there's some examples where restaurant chains have automated a process, but they've not automated the entire process, just a set proportion of it. But all it basically drove in was people standing and watching a machine do what they would have ordinarily been doing because they needed to wait for the machine to for them to do the next part of the task. So there was no real saving in that instance. So it was a good proof of concept to say, well, as it is, it was not working, but actually you change a couple of things around, you make it do more of the process, and it will start to have an impact. Similarly, you've seen examples in sort of a couple of projects we've done recently where they've wanted to know the impact of if you make a special product for a limited amount of time, what impact does that have on the on the restaurant and the operations? And it can look quite minimal when you're introducing that because it's just a new sort of a type of burger, but then it actually increases the amount of toppings that you've got to hold in an area that's already tight. So people are walking more between like a burger and the topping that they're wanting. And just little things like that will have knock-on impact throughout the entire restaurant. So if you've ever been and used the drive-through lanes, if you order one of those special products, they're less likely to have them ready and waiting and available for you. So then you're more likely to end up getting parked in a space as a customer. But if you get parked in a space, often a colleague then has to come out of the restaurant, walk to the car, and hand an item or your order over to you, which is a lot longer than if things are just ready and available to hand out at the drive-through window. So it was interesting to show that limited time offer is a small change, but actually has almost a butterfly effect throughout the entire restaurant where it was driving more people to end up being parked into bays and then a colleague to go out of the restaurant and serve them rather than just passing things through windows.

SPEAKER_04: 21:16

Yeah, and those are the types of costs that are often hidden from the people who come up with the good ideas of the limited uh time offer products or the or the changes. So really interesting to see it in practice. Now, I mean, you've talked about utilisation a couple of times, and I'd like to ask another question about that to you and then to Sue. But before I move on, like, is there anything else that you wanted to flag up about what you've seen in QSI that you think the listener would be interested in?

SPEAKER_01: 21:42

I think it's it's just a really interesting sector, and like we've like we've touched on, it is that innovation piece that it can be it, they're they're normally at the forefront of anything exciting and and shiny in terms of the trials, because there is that attitude of, well, if you don't there's nothing to lose necessarily by trialing it in a couple of locations. But there can be everything to gain from it if you can completely remove a process that somebody's doing and make a big saving on labour for almost a capex that you can pay off over the course of a couple of years. So I think, yeah, there's a lot to learn from from the sector in terms of that trialing and just going for things, trialling it, and then learning the lessons from it. And at least you know then rather than just thinking about things and and it being written off before it is is even tried in some instances.

SPEAKER_04: 22:40

That's brilliant. Thank you. And you know, you mentioned this earlier yourself when you were talking about automation. So if you're if you're finding time that you can save in your operation, you need to find a certain amount of time before you can reduce your your staffing workload. Because if you're just bringing up small chunks of time, you still need somebody there to work around those chunks of time. And you know, you can't ask people to just come in for one or two hour shift. So how have you seen that impacting QSR?

SPEAKER_03: 23:12

And then Sue, I'd ask you to come in and talk about that more generally if that's okay. So how have you seen it impacting QSR?

SPEAKER_01: 23:21

We've seen it in a couple of different ways. So one, it's introduced a an un almost unavoidable weight in some instances and in some processes where they've not removed enough of a process to completely eliminate the the work that goes on with it. So that instance of somebody watching the machine so they can do the next task. That's a classic example of that. But we've also seen restaurants start to look at the time that's been created and look at what's being completed when the restaurant's really busy in terms of task and start to say or start to question at least what tasks do we complete during our busiest period of time that we can move out of that and move into the quieter times and ensure people are occupied when they're in the in the restaurant. So it's it's things as simple as part of uh making a portion of fries is going to be opening a packet up. Now during peak, you constantly opening up packets if you're not careful. So one restaurant we saw pre-opened a load of packets so that they had a box ready to go where you just picked a packet up and put fries into. And they took that that piece of workload that's to do with assembling a portion of fries and just took it out of peak completely, ensure people were occupied when otherwise they'd be they'd be going around and filling the time with with cleaning worktops, let's say.

SPEAKER_04: 25:02

Yeah, that's fascinating. Thank you. And if you've got good forecasting for the day ahead, then you can minimize waste for that as well. So I guess that's another area where where tech comes to together with with protos. Sue, I mean, I know we've talked about this on previous episodes. How do brands you know gear up to serve lots of customers at peak, but deal with the fact that they they don't want people there serving when it's not peak. I mean, is there anything else you would like to say on on that at this point in relation to QSR or is applicability elsewhere?

SPEAKER_00: 25:34

It is the big challenge for people, and as we've talked about before, we've seen some evidence that those peaks, if anything, people are being at times of when they've pulled back on spend and they've pull back hours. There's a real risk that if you don't manage to resource your peaks correctly, then what you do is you you sort of stifle your capacity. And QSRs have had this interesting challenge where there are natural peaks when people tend to eat at mealtimes, which is states in the obvious. By adding in sort of the other delivery channels, they've actually made their peaks even peakier. So it has forced them to really think, well, how do we make the most of you know, get the throughput as a maximum when it's busy? And for years, QSR restaurants have been some of the best places at managing their resource so that they know that at a certain level of throughput, one person can be looking after the fries and building a burger at the same time. And actually, once you hit a certain point, you really need to have two separate people on. So they're they've become very adept at knowing how many colleagues they need based on the throughput at that particular time. So that combination of using their colleagues really smartly, trying to take workload out all the time, has meant that they are much better able than a lot of business other businesses and sectors are in terms of managing those peaks, which I say has been a challenge because those peaks have just got peakier. So it's been some really clever stuff happening.

SPEAKER_04: 27:02

That's fascinating. Thank you both. Before I throw back to Simon, Sue, is there anything else that you would like to chat about in relation to QSR? What have I not asked you about that I should have done?

SPEAKER_00: 27:14

Nothing that I can think of. It just amazes me that there's sort of there's usually lots of them on every high streets and we kind of all walk past them, but probably we don't really think about kind of some of the amazing stuff that does happen within these businesses.

SPEAKER_04: 27:27

Yeah, I certainly, certainly don't. Ed, how about you? And we don't we don't speak as often as I I speak with Sue on these podcasts. Is there anything else that I have I've not asked you that you'd like to chat about?

SPEAKER_01: 27:37

Nothing really. I just without sounding like a marketing man or or making people sort of eat unhealthily, uh it is worthwhile going into these restaurants and just taking a moment to appreciate what's happening to get that food with you so quickly because it is a it's amazing really that you can make these products so quickly and get them out to to customers and the amount of innovation that goes into that item of food that you're eating is it's extraordinary really when you when you think about it.

SPEAKER_04: 28:13

Amazing, thank you. And that's why you need an IMDB page and and I don't. Thank you. Thank you both. That was that's fascinating. I could talk all day, but I'll um hand back to to Simon to talk about anything else that's that's coming up.

SPEAKER_02: 28:25

Thank you, James and Sue. So the the headline for this podcast is Ed encourages you to visit QSR. You didn't say eating them, my notice Ed just visit. So a couple of things just to remind you about we will be at the retail technology show the 22nd and 23rd of April at the Excel in London, along with lots of other fabulous companies for you to come and say hello and look at. We've got the VIP party in partnership with sold by AI on the 22nd, so that's the first evening of that event. I will put the registration link in the show notes if you've not registered. Um, just looking a bit further ahead. Our 11th, sorry, productivity forum takes place in September. In Birmingham again, there's a link on the website if you want to register and take part in the day. Place for the filling up quick. We've got more people registered than last year, so planning to be a great event with our partner lounge again. Bigger than last year, so we won't talk too much about that. We'll keep me in suspense for the day. But uh once again, thanks Ed for joining us as a special guest. Thanks, Sue and James. We'll see you on the next episode. Thank you, Simon. See you soon.

SPEAKER_03: 29:37

Yeah, thanks, Simon.