These Fast Food Chains Are The Best And Worst For Drive-Thru Speed

When it comes to fast food drive-thru times, not all of the major chains impress customers, but Taco Bell led the pack for efficient service.

Intouch Insight released its annual drive-thru study, which provides a yearly ranking of the top fast-food chains in terms of speed and accuracy. The analysis looks at nearly 1,500 drive-thru visits at 10 chains.

The restaurants ranked included Arby's, Burger King, Carl's Jr., Chick-fil-A, Dunkin', Hardee's, KFC, McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's.

Overall, fast food chains are improving their service in both efficiency and accuracy, but only some rose to the top in overall service.

Taco Bell was hailed the fastest drive-thru of the group, with customers spending only an average of a little less than five minutes waiting in line from start to finish. Next up was Carl Jr's and KFC, with Chick-fil-A coming in last at seven and a half minutes.

The average total ordering time at all the chains went down by 29 seconds, and the average number of cars declined from 2.76 to 1.27. Guests were also more likely to get the correct orders compared to last year, and customer satisfaction climbed by 1 percent to 90 percent.

Chick-fil-A Ranked Highly By Most Customers

While Chick-fil-A was unable to score high marks when it came to one of the most important factors of a drive-thru visit, speed, it received some of the best rankings in other categories.

Known for its signature "My pleasure" phrase and near constantly pleasant employees, Chick-fil-A was the only chain with a friendliness score higher than 90 percent. It also scored a "not friendly" score of 0 percent, marking a key difference between it and other restaurants, which had much more mixed scores.

The one fallback of Chick-fil-A, its slower speed, might be attributed to the fact that the fried chicken giant tends to have more cars in line than other chains. After all, the restaurant boasted the fastest total time based on the number of cars in line.

McDonald's came in second place in that regard, followed by Wendy's.

Beyond being inefficient, one of the worst things a fast food chain can do is give you the wrong order.

In that metric, once again, Chick-fil-A was deemed the winner, supplying the correct order 92 percent of the time.

Burger King followed not far behind, with order accuracy at roughly 90 percent.

Some restaurants were more known for their mistakes. Arby's, Dunkin and Hardee's all tied for last place at just 82 percent.

Keep in mind it's far less likely for a restaurant to give you the entirely wrong food order. In a large number of cases, roughly a third, the issue was that employees gave a drink with ice instead of no ice, Intouch Insight found.

Food quality is another key metric that will determine how likely customers are to visit a restaurant again.

Continuing its strong performance, Chick-fil-A customers said their entrees tasted as expected 98 percent of the time, meaning the chain delivered on promises of both accuracy and quality even if the drive-thrus were more likely to have more cars.

KFC trailed just a bit lower than Chick-fil-A, but all of the chains garnered a rating of at least 90 percent. The lowest scores were awarded to Burger King and Carl's Jr., which both only earned 95 percent.

Chick-fil-A was once again hailed the best brand for overall satisfaction, at 97 percent. Second place was Taco Bell (95 percent) with Arby's taking third (93 percent). Meanwhile, Wendy's ranked fourth at 90 percent.

The loser of the group was Burger King, earning just 85 percent in overall satisfaction.

The results of the study match commonly expressed consumer sentiment: Chick-fil-A was named America's favorite fast food chain for the ninth year in a row, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.