Robots at Burger King? Julia Barsch, Head of Digital Burger King Germany, in an interview

Robots bringing burgers or a drive-thru with personalized ads? The future at Burger King should be digital, Julia Barsch, Head of Digital at Burger King Germany, makes that clear. Digital ordering in the app or at the self-order terminal, SOTs for short, is already common at Burger King. “Our guests are really keen on digitization,” says Barsch.

The centerpiece is the Burger King app: it can be used to place orders, and the coupons in particular attract users. “It’s Burger King in your pocket,” describes Barsch. The application brought them new insights into what their customers want. “An important lesson learned is that we said we have to be more personalized,” says Barsch.

What that means? Customers should have easy options for configuring their food at Burger King: an extra slice of cheese, no bacon, the choice is already available at the SOTs today. In the app, customers can already indicate which burgers they prefer. Barsch talks about the future of the app in the t3n interview.

It is also about the process of digitization: How were employees convinced of this? And what about the franchisees anyway? Although Burger King Germany has its own branches, there are also franchisees who operate stores in Germany. Everyone had to support the conversion of the stores to digital ordering.

In the beginning they should have been very skeptical. “Of course you come in and say, big tablets will now be hanging in the stores and that’s where the guests will order from,” says Barsch. That was unthinkable almost five years ago – today it is common practice in the stores.

Customers order on the “tablets”, i.e. the SOTs, and payment is also possible with them. Burger King has found new tasks for employees who used to take orders and stand at the checkout. “For example the pick-up counter, i.e. the part of the store where the orders are packed and handed out to the guest,” says Barsch. No one was given notice by the SOT deployment.

In the future, digitalization at Burger King is to go even further: the interaction between app and store is to be strengthened, but robots are not to be used for the time being. What about the drive-in with personalized advertising? Barsch reveals this in the t3n interview podcast.