Drive-thru greeting and order-taking scripts, with a practice drill

A good drive-thru greeting is short: welcome the guest, name the restaurant and ask what they would like. Keep the add-on offer for after the order. In the 2025 QSR Drive-Thru Report, visits with an add-on offered in the greeting averaged 364.2 seconds from lane entry to food, against 327.5 seconds when the offer came after the order.

The scripts below are examples we wrote for this guide. Change the words to fit your brand and keep the order of the steps. Each step has a crew version and a version for an AI order-taker, since more lanes now have one. If guests keep asking the crew to repeat themselves, fix the audio first with our speaker post guide.

What should a drive-thru greeting say?

Three parts, in one breath: a welcome, the restaurant's name, and one open question. "Hi, welcome to Rosa's. What can I get for you today?" gives the guest a clear turn to talk.

Tone matters too. In the 2025 QSR Drive-Thru Report, run with Intouch Insight, overall satisfaction was 97% when mystery shoppers rated the crew friendly and 22% when they did not. Friendly visits were also faster on average: 323.8 seconds, against 417.5 seconds for visits rated not friendly. Those are averages across 13 chains, so treat them as a pattern to test on your own lane.

Chick-fil-A moves the greeting upstream. A company director told QSR Magazine in October 2019 that crew with tablets walk up the line to take orders, "which gives us a chance to greet the guest sooner."

What does a full order script look like?

These are example lines. Words in brackets change per order.

Step	Crew example	AI order-taker example	Why this step
1. Greeting	"Hi, welcome to [brand]. What can I get for you today?"	"Hi, welcome to [brand]. What can I get for you? You can ask for a team member at any time."	Short, with one question; the AI version tells guests how to reach a person
2. Take each item	"One number 3. Medium or large?"	"One number 3. Would you like that medium or large?"	Ask for each required choice as it comes up
3. Confirm changes	"No onion on the burger, got it."	"No onion on the burger."	Repeat each change once, as the guest says it
4. Anything else	"Anything else for you?"	"Anything else?"	One open question, then wait
5. One offer	"Would you like to add a [dessert] for [price]?"	"Would you like to add a [dessert] for [price]?"	One offer, after the order, with the price
6. Read back	"I have a medium number 3, no onion, with a Coke, no ice, and a kids' nuggets with apple slices."	The same readback, with the order shown on the screen	Catches drink and side mistakes before the kitchen starts
7. Total and next step	"Your total is [total]. Please pull up to the first window."	"Your total is [total]. Please pull up to the window."	Tells the guest where to go and what to have ready
8. Window	"Hi again, that's [total]." Then, handing over: "Here's your order. The Coke with no ice is on top."	Crew only	A final check on the item most likely to be wrong

Intouch's notes on its 2025 study say 51% of order mistakes came from missed ice requests in drinks and 25% from wrong items. The QSR report adds that order accuracy was 26 percentage points higher when the order confirmation board showed the order correctly, and 64% when it did not. Read the drink details aloud, and look at the board while you do.

What should the crew say when something goes wrong?

Write these lines down too, and post them next to the headset base station.

• You could not hear: "Sorry, I missed the last item. Could you say it again?" Ask for the part you missed so the guest does not start over.
• An item is sold out: "We're out of [item] right now. Could I get you [similar item] instead?"
• The guest is still reading the board: "Take your time. Just let me know when you're ready."
• The guest changes the order after the readback: "No problem. So that's [new item] in place of [old item]." Then read back the whole order once more.
• The guest asks for a manager: "Of course. Please pull up to the window and I'll have [manager's name] meet you there."
• A very large order: follow your store's rule, such as asking the guest to pull into a waiting space after paying, and say it in the same words each time.

Repeats cost time. The QSR report found total time was 1 minute 25 seconds faster when the shopper did not have to repeat the order, and 29 seconds faster when the crew's volume was loud enough to hear.

What does an AI order-taker say?

AI vendors describe how much of the script a restaurant controls. Presto's page for Presto Voice says greetings can be set for each daypart. Hi Auto's product page says brands control the voice persona, scripting, upsells and regional settings.

Some guests will not talk to a bot. Burger King's vice president of brand technologies said at a September 2026 conference that its pilot restaurants saw drive-offs from guests who did not want to talk to one, and that the chain is building an easier way to order from a person, Restaurant Business reported. The same article cites Technomic data: 23% of consumers find ordering from an AI drive-thru bot appealing, and 46% find it unappealing. The AI greeting in the table tells guests up front that they can ask for a person.

When you review an AI script, check these lines:

1. The words that reach a person. "Team member," "a person" and "manager" should all work, and the handoff line should tell the guest what happens next.
2. The readback. Every change and drink detail should be read back, with the order on the screen.
3. The offer. Choose one offer per order and when it is made. An AI can make the same offer on every order, so pick it with care.
4. Sold-out items. Ask how the AI learns an item is out, and what it says.
5. Languages. Hear a sample order in each language your guests use.

Maple's drive-thru unit, in early access with a small number of restaurants, takes the order item by item, skips items that are out of stock, shows a live cart and total on its screen, and offers an upsell chosen by the restaurant on every order. Guests can ask for a person at any time, and a one-press switch returns the lane to the crew.

How do you practice the script?

Run this drill before a shift, once a week, with two people. It takes about 20 minutes.

1. Write ten order cards: a combo with a drink swap, a drink with no ice, a burger with two items removed, a kids' meal, a family order of six items, a sold-out item, a guest who changes one item after the readback, a guest who speaks too quietly, a guest who asks for a manager, and a guest who takes a long time to decide.
2. One person sits in a car at the speaker post with the engine running and reads the first five cards, one at a time. The other takes the order on the headset, using the script.
3. Time each order point with the worksheet in our drive-thru timer guide, from the first word of the greeting to the end of the readback.
4. Check the ticket against the card. Mark every missed change, missed drink detail, and any step skipped.
5. Swap seats and run the other five cards.
6. Talk through the misses for two minutes. Change the script only if the same step fails for more than one person.

If you trial an AI order-taker, run the same ten cards through it and compare the tickets. Our AI drive-thru pilot checklist sets out what else to record.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines the 2025 QSR Drive-Thru Report and Intouch Insight study notes, chain statements reported in trade press, and vendors' own pages with original example scripts and a practice drill. The scripts are our own examples. The guide does not quote any chain's official script or report a Maple test.