Burger King Opens World’s First Silent Drive Thru for Shy Finns

“The most silent and the melancholy nation on Earth.” That is how the Finns, barely a population of 5.5 million, are often described. In Finland a perfect customer experience, usually equals an encounter where absolutely no words are exchanged.

That’s why Burger King has opened the world’s first 100% silent drive thru called ‘Silent Pick Drive’ in Helsinki, Finland. Thanks to the new innovation a customer can now order, pay and pick up the order from the restaurant without any kind of verbal communication or waiting.

For many Finns that’s like a silent dream come loudly true. 

Toni Flyckt, marketing director of Burger King Finland, said: “It’s a bit of exaggeration, of course, but there’s an honest truth behind it. Many Finns are, in fact, private and shy people who don’t particularly enjoy of having any conversation with someone we are unfamiliar with. Even while picking up their food. We wanted to use that positive stereotype of our fellow Finns and create a totally new kind of drive thru service.”

For now, the Silent Pick Drive is only available in Finland but in the long run the service predicts the disappearance of the old Drive Thru lanes. Not just in Finland, but perhaps globally.

“Given the fact that the drive through models have not changed practically at all since the introduction of the original Drive Thru this is a massive reform. It’s time for change and unlike our competitors we rather look into the future”, says Toni Flyckt, the Marketing Director of Burger King Finland. 

The service works through a Finnish mobile app called Restis (developed by the restaurant company Restel) that is available free of charge for all common smartphones and operators in Finland. 

Advanced mobile technology was one of the reasons behind the development of the Silent Pick Drive. So was the feedback from the customers worldwide.

Toni added: “Based on that data we had three main goals to achieve: To make the ordering process smoother. To minimise the waiting time. And to improve communication. The Silent Pick Drive drastically improves our services in all of those three critical areas.” 

The customer registers into the Restis mobile app, signs in, makes and pays the order on a credit card, decides when it will be ready and picks up the order from the restaurant. 

But instead of queuing and waiting at the old-fashioned Drive Thru lane, the order is delivered by a silent yet smiling Burger King employee, directly into the customer vehicle that is parked on the specific Silent Pick Drive area.

“Based on our experiences from the opening weekend in Helsinki Silent Pick Drive speeds the ordering process by on average seven to eight minutes. That is a significant number,” said Toni.

 

In the process the unnecessary idling of the vehicles is also reduced, which is good for the environment, the customers and the Burger King employers.

 

Silent Pick Drive is currently only available in the Burger King Käpylä Helsinki, but the concept will expand to at least to 15 Burger King restaurants around Finland during the spring of 2019.   

“Silent Pick Drive is the beginning of the new era. Burger Kings want to lead the global innovation process of our entire industry and Finland is a pretty decent place to start that revolution. After all, all this silence gives us a lot of time to think,” said Toni.