Motivating your quick-service employees during the summer months can be quite an undertaking. While everyone else seems to be having fun in the sun, the last place your crewmembers want to be is working indoors. One way to keep your employees engaged is by hosting a friendly competition between shifts using the store’s drive-thru equipment. This will not only boost morale, but also increase your speed of service which will ultimately improve your drive-thru sales. Here are a few games you can introduce to your employees:

Speed Game

Everyone knows the quicker you move cars, the more cars you’ll be able to service, and the more money you’ll make. Because speed is such an important part of the quick-service industry, this game is sure to have a great impact on your sales.

To start, access your reports from the previous week for each shift. If you have an HME ZOOM® drive-thru timer, use the report for multi-day comparison. You’ll fill in three fields. In field one select shift, in field two select the time period, and in field three select the start and end dates for your report. Once you’ve filled in all three sections, click the button to generate your report. Choose which event you would like to time and give that average to each shift leader as the starting point. At the end of the week, run the report again to see which shift improved the most. Some stores offer prizes or incentives for the winning shift, though bragging rights aren’t too bad either.

30-Day Disaster Challenge

No matter how quick your crew is, there will ultimately be times in the day or certain orders that take longer simply due to the complexity of the order or a mistake in the kitchen. Disastrous orders are practically unavoidable, but should be as minimal as possible.

Set a difficult, yet fair and achievable goal for the number of disastrous orders your store must stay below in a given month and entice your team with a prize or bonus once they achieve that goal. If you are using a ZOOM drive-thru timer, you can set this goal as one of the events that shows up on the dashboard screen so your team can keep track at all times.

Line Buster

When customers see a long line in the drive-thru lane, they’re likely to go elsewhere if they aren’t in the mood to wait. Long lines are turn-offs and ultimately lead to missed opportunities, which will in turn hurt your sales.

If you have a complex order that is causing a bottleneck, have the customer pull into a parking space or waiting area so other customers can breeze on through. You can also create a game out of this by setting a “max car in lane” goal. Every time the shift goes over the maximum number of cars you want to allow in the lane at one time they will have a point deducted. The team with the fewest points deducted at the end of your designated time frame will win.

Because most drive-thru timers allow you to record several different events at a time, you can modify all of these games to suit whichever goals you are looking to achieve. By creating an entertaining competition, your employees are likely to be more engaged and have fun with their shift. This will ultimately create a better customer experience and improve your bottom line.