• by Teresa Buyikian , October 23, 2025

A leading chicken QSR and a drive-thru coffee chain take the top spots for customer satisfaction in Intouch Insight’s 25^th Annual Drive-Thru Study.

The October 2025 report, fielded by the customer experience and mystery shopper company, evaluated 13 QSR brands’ performance in speed, accuracy, satisfaction, food quality and suggestive selling.

Both Chick-fil-A and Dutch Bros. tied for winner in overall satisfaction, each scoring 98%. Arby’s was second at 93%. In terms of food quality, Raising Cane's topped the list at 100%, followed by Arby’s and Dutch Bros, each at 99%.

AI’s impact on the drive-thru experience took a front seat this year, with the study examining an additional 120 AI-enabled orders across three QSRs that are rolling out voice-AI ordering. But while AI increased the ordering speed to three minutes and 53 seconds (as compared to four minutes and 15 second average), accuracy subsequently took a hit, declining to 83% from 87%. But when employees jumped in to help out the AI ordering system, accuracy jumped to 90%.

“The drive-thru is no longer just about speed. It has evolved into a digital fulfillment hub where each transaction is more complex,” says Sarah Beckett, vice president of sales and marketing at Intouch Insight. “The question is no longer just 'How do we get faster?' but now, 'How can we design our drive-thru workflows and leverage technology to optimize for this new reality, while still maintaining efficiency for the customer queue?’"

“Friendliness” had a big impact on overall satisfaction, reaching 97% when the customer deemed the interaction to be “friendly” and also impacted order accuracy (89% vs. 70%), as well as increased speed (five minutes and 23 seconds vs. six minutes and 57 seconds).

What happens when there's a downer at the drive-thru window? Overall satisfaction fell to a just 22% when the service wasn’t friendly.

The fastest chain was Taco Bell at 4:16, followed by KFC (4:21) and Tim Hortons (4:25).   Dutch Bros. also took the top slot for accuracy at 96%, followed by Burger King and Wendy’s (88%) and Chick-fil-A and Raising Cane’s (87%).

The 13 QSR brands analyzed for the study were McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Raising Cane’s, Popeyes, Dutch Bros, Tim Hortons, Starbucks, Dunkin’ and Arby’s.