The right QSR breakfast does two things: It gets high quality, nutritious food into the hands of customers, and it does so in a hurry. Customers are actively seeking out breakfast options on the go, to the chagrin of cereal manufacturers. QSR locations have a clear opportunity to provide healthy food in a hurry for the 48% of consumers who seek out drive thru dining options each morning.
What drives fast food breakfast traffic — and which components matter most? Your menu and the convenience you are offering your customer play a key role in your success. Offering great tasting, quality food with a side of coffee ensures that your customers actively seek out and enjoy your offerings. Setting up systems that allow customers to quickly acquire easy-to-carry menu items without getting stuck in a long line or having to wait ensures that you are truly giving them a convenient option for breakfast each day.
Convenience and Speed
How quickly can a customer get through the entire breakfast buying process, from pulling into your lot to getting back on the road? For today’s time-pressed consumers, even a few minutes makes a difference. If you plan to focus on the A.M. rush, make sure that your team is fully prepared to fulfill orders as swiftly and accurately as possible. Even a single bad experience can prevent customers from coming back — if a trip through your drive thru means they’ll be late for work, they’ll pass you by.
Convenience is about more than speed, though. The most popular morning menu options are also those that can be eaten without utensils or mess. Your morning customers are likely speeding off to work or school after picking up breakfast, so dripping condiments or a messy knife and fork combo won’t hold much appeal. McDonald’s recently reported an annual sales increase of 5% for all day breakfast sandwiches; other menu options rose only 1% in the same time period.
If there’s one thing that fast food breakfasters want as much as fast and convenient food, it’s caffeine. A recent survey by marketing research experts at Technomic reveals that a full third of all morning coffee drinkers feel loyal to their favorite brand. Adding or drawing attention to coffee on the menu could help drive more foot traffic to your location and reinforce loyalty with current customers each day. Designing new coffee-based drinks or making your coffee options more visible allows you to take advantage of one of the most relevant QSR breakfast trends and ensures your customer only needs to make a single stop.
Food Quality and Taste
Though Americans may be of mixed opinion on whether breakfast is really the most important meal of the day, they do agree on one thing: it has to taste good.
Customers are invested and motivated to seek out quality food at any time during the day, but having a quality meal in the morning is particularly appealing. Offering protein rich menu items with wholesome ingredients appeals to those consumers who identify a healthy breakfast as a key part of the morning (thanks to the cereal industry, in some cases), but who are not able or lack the time to cook at home. More than half of those who seek out drive thru food for breakfast are significantly motivated by food quality and will make choices based on health and perceived quality in addition to convenience.
Customer demand for high quality food continues to surge, according to experts at AMEX Open Forum — a trend that continues to drive QSR breakfast sales. Offering convenient, high quality food to consumers on-the-go is key to winning the breakfast game.
