This Fast Food Chain Is The Most Likely To Get Orders Wrong

There's nothing more frustrating than getting the wrong fast food order. It can throw off the rest of your day's errands or ruin your dinner. Or worse, you finally get home, open the bag, and the thing you craved the most is missing or incorrect. According to Intouch Insight's 2025 Drive-Thru Study, KFC had one of the roughest order-accuracy showings among chicken chains. The study looked at 165 mystery shops per brand across 13 U.S. chains, so this was not one random drive-thru disaster. Basically, KFC was eight percentage points behind Chick-fil-A, which was the most accurate when it came to getting orders right. That tracks with KFC being ranked the worst fast food fried chicken chain before.

The stories are showing up outside the study, too. In a Reddit thread about fast food chains that often get orders wrong, KFC was the top response. The top commenter specifically called out KFC and wrote, "KFC. They simply don't know how to make good food." Another lamented, "KFC always [forgets] the gravy," which had another user agreeing that this particular phenomenon happens too often. On Facebook, someone claimed, "KFC and Burger King have continuously been the worst service for the past 5 [to] 10 years."

Of course, that does not mean every KFC run is doomed. However, when you are craving that golden fried chicken, hot fries, buttermilk biscuits, or the extra sauce you specifically asked for, even one missing item is annoying. Between the study results and internet reviews, KFC clearly has enough complaints to make the issue hard to ignore.

A lot of wrong orders seem to come down to the ordering process itself, specifically at the drive-thru. For example, accuracy was 16 percentage points higher when the sound speaker was clear and understandable. If the audio is garbled or the order gets entered wrong at the start, the mistake follows the food all the way to the window. 

Training may play a role, too. Restaurants improve speed and order accuracy by having their employees well-trained. In another Reddit thread, a new KFC trainee described feeling lost in training. In response, a self-identified KFC worker said, "My best advice would be to not hold out your hopes on being trained/being told what to do[;] a year in and [I've] still never been trained." Another individual chimed in, "Here to back this. I joined and got barely any training from trainers." While these are individual experiences, not company-wide proof, they still add useful context as to why specific locations may suffer.

Automation has accuracy issues, too. AI voice ordering scored 4 percentage points lower than core stores for accuracy, at 83% compared with 87%. The report also gives a useful contrast: Dutch Bros scored high on accuracy, so wrong orders are not inevitable. Some chains are just getting it right more often, while KFC is already dealing with bigger struggles beyond the drive-thru and has landed low in our fried chicken chain rankings. A chain that is struggling may have a harder time investing in quality training, after all.