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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-drive dept.

Waze's traffic navigation app already shows ads prodding drivers to swing by fast-food joints like Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell. Now it's adding a new item to its menu—the ability to place orders at some shops.

On Tuesday, the Google-owned app will start letting drivers purchase coffee and other items from Dunkin' Donuts for pickup along their way. It's the first time that Waze has offered this kind of "order ahead" option, but unlikely to be the last.

If all goes well with the Dunkin' Donuts test, Waze plans to team up with other merchants so its millions of users can order pizza, reserve parking spaces, fill prescriptions and even buy groceries without having to open another app on their phones.

"It could be almost anything that a driver could order ahead and have ready for pick up," said Jordan Grossman, head of Waze's business partnerships in North America.

They should dispatch drones to bring the donuts to your car while you're stuck in morning traffic.


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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:26PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:26PM (#486726)

    I recall I was in downtown Chicago late summer last year and the Panera or St Louis Bread Company or whatever they call themselves had kiosks set up in the shop where you could order your food and swipe your card and stuff and they'd just bring it out to you eventually rather than waiting in line for the cashier. I kind of wonder if it's not all part of an effort to cut operating costs by reducing the footprint of the cashier manhours.

    Maybe, but it's a truly wonderful experience for me as a customer. I love to go to Paneras that have the kiosks. Compare:

    Without kiosk:
    - wait in line for cashier (wait a long time for stupid customers to stare at menu while cashier waits for them to speak, decide what they want, say what they want, change their mind, etc., then take forever paying), wait some more, keep waiting
    - tell cashier what you want verbally, repeat yourself a few times
    - pay
    - go wait around the food pick-up area for your order
    - go find a table

    With kiosk:
    - no line, just walk up to an available terminal
    - swipe frequent-customer card
    - get presented with choices, including your frequently-ordered/favorite items
    - quickly choose your favorites, OR take your time and browse the *enormous* selection which the cashier won't tell you about that you didn't realize even existed: you can have your sandwich made with a dozen types of bread, a dozen different add-ons, you can change the regular ingredients (less/more/eliminate), etc.
    - you can take advantage of special deals which the cashier forgot to tell you about (e.g. pastry for $0.99 if you buy a meal and drink)
    - swipe your credit card to pay
    - take a buzzer, enter the number, then go to your table and wait for someone to deliver your food
    - you don't have to talk to some dumb cashier with a hard-to-understand Southern accent
    - you don't have to wait in line with a bunch of annoying people
    - you can laugh at the morons that don't want to use the kiosk and insist on going to the cashier to place an order as you go find a seat long before they're done with their order

    The kiosks give you a level of convenience and speed you just cannot get with humans, especially because of how long it takes most people to communicate verbally, and the kiosks (due to their visual rather than verbal nature) give you options you won't get from a minimum-wage cashier. They also eliminate order mistakes that are commonplace with verbal orders.

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  • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday March 31 2017, @12:46AM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Friday March 31 2017, @12:46AM (#486851)

    Yeah, I wasn't trying to knock it (at least from a functionality point of view). It was a little strange from a "this is not how this normally works" kind of thing, but it worked out well enough and certainly was convenient. I'd just never seen it prior to then.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!