When the drive-thru isn’t fast enough, a new Taco Bell app will allow customers to live más through mobile ordering.
Taco Bell is testing a new app for customers to order and pay for their food entirely from their smartphones. The company plans to roll out the app later this year.
Bonnie Riggs, the restaurant industry analyst for the National Purchase Diary Group’s food service division, said this new wave of technology could come with complications.
“I’m going to say that it’s a great idea, but I think operationally there’s a lot of challenges associated with it,” she said. “My biggest concern was how do they do this operationally without alienating other customers.”
She said restaurant owners would have to add a separate pick-up area and drive-thru lane if they want to follow through with the app’s claims of eliminating long lines.
Plus, she said, they‘d have to find a way to fill mobile orders along with the normal in-shop customers.
Even with the implied changes, Juan Zapata, a UF advertising junior involved with the Taco Libre Party, said he would definitely use the app.
“Considering students, especially here at the University of Florida, we’re super fast-paced,” said Zapata, 21. “We live in an age where technology is everything ... everything is a ‘you gotta have it now’ mindset.”
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 3/18/2014 under the headline "Taco Bell testing mobile ordering app"]
