Making it even easier to order a ridiculous number of Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos Supreme after a late night out at the bars, Taco Bell is testing a mobile application that allows customers to place an order for food and pay for the meal before even arriving at the fast food chain. According to the Los Angeles Times, the mobile app is currently in a closed beta test at five Orange County, California locations and will be opened up to a larger group of consumers within the next few weeks. Beyond that, Taco Bell’s corporate management is interested in launching the application for all locations before the end of the year.
When customers arrive at the selected Taco Bell location, they will have the option of using the drive-through or simply walk up a cashier within the fast food restaurant to pick up their order. Ideal for frequent visitors to Taco Bell, the application will save information about your latest orders in order to repeat those orders at a later time.
There’s also an interesting twist to the mobile app that has to do with location. The application will track your distance from the selected store using GPS and trigger an alert to Taco Bell employees to start preparing the order once you are within a few minutes of the location. If this process works correctly, food will be served up piping hot rather than getting cold while sitting in a bag for a long period of time.
Speaking about the new mobile app, Taco Bell mobile lead Jeff Jenkins said “With the popularity of millennials and smart phones, we saw this coming, and decided to build the ground work a couple of years ago for mobile. Mobile is going to be the biggest sort of innovator, shake-up in the quick service industry since the drive-thru.” Jenkins also indicated that many people will prefer using the mobile app over the drive-through menu due the unlimited amount of time the app provides to customize your order as opposed to feeling rushed while scanning the menu board.
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