Established in 1982, Desert de Oro Foods is Arizona’s largest Taco Bell franchisee with a total of 140 locations in Arizona, California and Utah. The franchisee prides itself on putting people first – team members and guests. This commitment is an important aspect of Desert de Oro Foods’ desire to create a positive and seamless drive-thru experience for guests and drive-thru team members.

Desert de Oro Foods’ Taco Bell locations had a range of drive-thru communications systems that were deployed over the last five years. However, restaurants were experiencing poor sound quality due to a limited range of wireless capabilities with the current systems. Poor audio quality led to increased wait times for customers as a result of miscommunications and mistakes.

Additionally, drive-thru headsets were consistently breaking. As a result, Desert de Oro Foods had to keep extra headsets on hand to prevent a reduction in drive-thru staff when failures occurred. The cost of repairing, retrofitting plus downtime as well as extremely poor sound quality, made it clear to Parrish Jackson, Director of IT for Desert de Oro Foods, that a new solution needed to be considered. RF Technologies Inc., a leading drive-thru reseller, introduced Jackson to Panasonic’s Attune drive-thru communications system and offered him the opportunity to try out the Attune system along with three other brands to test the noise cancelling quality and headset durability.

“After testing Panasonic’s Attune system, it was clear the sound quality was far superior to our current systems,” said Jackson. “We decided to move forward with a pilot test in two different stores to make a decision between Panasonic and another vendor. After thorough testing, we ultimately selected Attune because of its exceptional sound clarity, user-friendly base station, universal speakers and microphones and durable headset design.” Desert de Oro Foods estimates around a $4,000 saving in repair costs over a 10-year system life when compared to the other major brands on the market.

The franchisee has been extremely pleased with the reliability and quality of Attune. The noise cancellation sound quality is superb, and Jackson’s team has had zero complaints from stores using Attune. Additionally, the Attune all-in-one (AIO) headsets have not required any repairs. The reduction in repairs alone has already saved Desert de Oro Foods money and kept the total cost of ownership low.

With the success of Attune at the initial ten locations, Desert de Oro Foods has decided to standardize with Panasonic for all refreshes and new store builds. During the second quarter of 2013, Desert de Oro Foods will replace all analog drive-thru systems with Panasonic’s Attune.

To learn more about Desert de Oro Foods’ Attune deployment, we encourage you to download the full case study from the Panasonic Solutions for Business website.