LOS ANGELES – In an effort to improve service at its drive thrus, McDonald's Corp. is adding a third window in new and rebuilt restaurants, The Columbian reports.

In the QSR’s current system, customers pull up to one window to pay for their order and then pickup their meal at a second window. The new system will incorporate what the company calls a Fast Forward Drive-Thru, allowing customers whose orders aren’t ready to pull up to a third window to wait.

"This test, along with other recent additions like double-lane and side-by-side drive-thrus, will enable us to better serve more customers quickly with the fast, friendly service they have come to expect from McDonald's," said spokeswoman Lisa McComb.

According to John A. Gordon, principal with Pacific Management Consulting Group, "easily two-thirds of [QSR] sales" come from drive thrus.

"Drive-thrus are so critical to their business model," Gordon said. "People are lazy and might not want to get out of their cars."

An annual report from QSR Magazine showed QSR customers waited 189 seconds on average at a McDonald’s drive thru, far slower than Wendy’s (134 seconds), Taco Bell (158 seconds) and Taco John’s (181 seconds).

It was the slowest performance ever for McDonald’s, which the company attributed in part to the launch of new products and limited-time offers.

"While the balance between our core products and new menu news was right, the pace of product introduction, in my opinion: too fast," said Jeff Stratton, president of McDonald’s USA.