McDonald's may outsource drive-thru order-taking

Brotha · Post by **Brotha** » March 11, 2005, 3:19 pm

Atleast now if someone messes up your order you can yell at them in person. This sounds like a pretty dumb idea to me.

By outsourcing they don't mean people in other countries. When I first read the headline I imagined someone with an Indian accent taking my order...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... -mcd_x.htm

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — McDonald's (MCD) wants to outsource your neighborhood drive-thru.
The world's largest fast-food chain said Thursday that it is looking into using remote call centers to take customer orders in an effort to improve service at its drive-thrus.

Company officials said the idea, being tested at a small number of restaurants in the Pacific Northwest, is aimed at reducing the number of mistakes.

"If you're in L.A.... and you hear a person with a North Dakota accent taking your order, you'll know what we're up to," McDonald's Chief Executive Jim Skinner told analysts at the Bear Stearns Retail, Restaurants & Apparel Conference in New York.

Call center professionals with "very strong communication skills" could help boost order accuracy and ultimately speed up the time it takes customers to get in and out of the drive-thrus, the company said.

"You have a professional order taker with strong communications skills whose job is to do nothing but take down orders," said Matthew Paull, McDonald's chief financial officer.

Paull said a "heavy percentage" of complaints the company receives are from drive-thru customers who got the wrong order.

"Even if 95% of the time it is right, those 5% are very upset with us," he said.

McDonald's spokeswoman Anna Rozenich said Friday that it is too early to say whether the outsourcing strategy would be implemented systemwide.

Improving its drive-thrus is one of the latest initiatives in McDonald's more than two-year-long effort to revitalize sales. The company's flagship U.S. business has benefited in the last year from the introduction of healthier menu items like entree-size salads and apple slices, later hours and cashless payments.

McDonald's European business, however, has lagged behind the United States in part due to economic weakness in places like Germany.

Paull said the company is making the right moves in Europe by introducing new menu items and focusing on lower-priced offerings, but warned that a turnaround would not be as strong as the one the company has experienced in the United States.

"It's unrealistic to expect that a turnaround in Europe will be as dramatic as in the U.S.," Paull said.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 11, 2005, 3:28 pm

Why not hire slightly more intelligent people? Why go through all of this when the fix is right in the damn restaurant. Corporate America hurts my brain.

Lynks · Post by **Lynks** » March 11, 2005, 3:34 pm

The problem with that is, the slightly more intelligent people want to get paid more, and rightfully so.

Stupid, so stupid. If you thought it was bad enough to get your order through , I can just imagine the bad reception that will happen.

"Welcome to Burger King, may I take your order."
"Uhhh, I thought this was MacDonals"
"Sorry, I work 2 jobs"

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 11, 2005, 3:38 pm

Lynks wrote:The problem with that is, the slightly more intelligent people want to get paid more, and rightfully so.

Stupid, so stupid. If you thought it was bad enough to get your order through , I can just imagine the bad reception that will happen.

"Welcome to Burger King, may I take your order."
"Uhhh, I thought this was MacDonals"
"Sorry, I work 2 jobs"

lol

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » March 11, 2005, 3:45 pm

They don't only fuck up in the drive through. They can fuck up your order while you are watching and if you don't check through the bag to make sure it is all there you will show up to a starving family 2 burgers and a fry short.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 11, 2005, 3:48 pm

Bubba Grizz wrote:They don't only fuck up in the drive through. They can fuck up your order while you are watching and if you don't check through the bag to make sure it is all there you will show up to a starving family 2 burgers and a fry short.

Excellent point. Humans make mistakes. This entire thing is fucking crazy. My blood is boiling thinking about it.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » March 11, 2005, 4:53 pm

if you want good service you have to be willing to pay more than $3 for a meal. and if you want a healthy meal for that matter

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » March 11, 2005, 5:16 pm

Voronwë wrote:if you want good service you have to be willing to pay more than $3 for a meal. and if you want a healthy meal for that matter

Bingo.

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » March 11, 2005, 5:21 pm

Yeah but is it too much to ask for my order to be correct more than 50% of the time?

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » March 11, 2005, 5:30 pm

look, a person working 40 hrs for $5 and change per hour makes like what, $13K a year? pre-tax. what do you expect?

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » March 11, 2005, 5:33 pm

I would prefer no attendant, let me punch in my own order. Accuracy should be more than 50%...

miir · Post by **miir** » March 11, 2005, 5:34 pm

Lohrno wrote:Yeah but is it too much to ask for my order to be correct more than 50% of the time?

McDonalds is shitty food with shitty service.
I don't understand why people actually eat there.

Moonwynd · Post by **Moonwynd** » March 11, 2005, 5:47 pm

I haven't eaten any fast food in almost 2 years (except the Grilled Chicken salad at McDonalds). It is amazing how many times they can screw the pooch on a salad order:

1. 80% of the time they give me NO plasticware
2. 90% of the time they give me no crouton packet
3. 50% of the time they give me no straw
4. 20% of the time they give me the wrong dressing
5. 70% of the time they give me no napkins
6. Three times in the last two months they put CRISPY chicken on my grilled chicken salad

I expect this kind of service at fast food places...and I never leave the drive thru window before going through my bag...no big deal.

I worked at Burger King during high school...back in the early to mid 80's. Does anyone know what the "waste bucket" is at BK? Let me tell you...

The "waste bucket" is one of the 5 gallon buckets that the pickle chips come in. Every BK has one. Hot food that has not sold in the time specified on the package (burgers, fries, other sandwiches, etc.) gets disposed of in the "waste bucket" throughout the day. And the end of the day someone counts the contents of the waste bucket so they can write off the the food they throw away and balance out the inventory. The waste bucket gets pretty full some days.

I cannot count the number of times it was busy at the drive thru...and no fish or chicken patties were on hand (not in the steam bin and none put down in the fryer). Rather than let the drive through back up or tell someone to pull ahead...someone fishes (no pun intended) in the waste bucket to find an expired sammich....and then puts it in the microwave to get it piping hot..and then sends it out the drive thru window to an unsuspecting customer.

This was NOT on occasional occurrence. This happened all the time...and not just at my BK....because in the 20 years since I worked there I have met many others that worked at different BK's....and it happened and still does happen.

I worked in the food service/restaurant business long enough to know two things:

1. I will never work in fast food ever again. I would rather rob liquor stores or dumpster dive to provide for myself

2. Never be rude to waitstaff or food prep/cooks no matter what eating establishment you are visiting. I saw someone spit on a plate of pasta at a restaurant once...because the customer was rude and sent the first plate back...and made an embarrassing scene.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » March 11, 2005, 5:48 pm

Lohrno wrote:Yeah but is it too much to ask for my order to be correct more than 50% of the time?

Come on, even back when I used to shovel this shit into my maw it wasn't even close to a 50% fuck up ratio.

The call center idea sounds like it can save costs though, I mean all the person does is assemble the order they see on the screen although customizing your order(whatever that can possibly be at a mcdonalds) would probably fry the system. But, if that means one order taker can fill 5 to 10 Mcdonalds joints, they can save, what $30 an hour in that small radius of locals.

if you want good service you have to be willing to pay more than $3 for a meal. and if you want a healthy meal for that matter

Seriously though. It still amazes me that there are always people inside of the place or waiting outside on line in their cars(even in the 24 hour ones that are all around me) for such shit food. Hell, I'd even hesitate to call it food and just refer to it as edible shit. And what's really sad is that there are 7 diners in a 3 mile radius around me where they actually cook stuff to order, and fast. So it's not as if there aren't real food choices that are inexpensive options available.

When I was young, mcd's was a treat because it was like nothing we ate regularly at home. Unless the fam was driving on vacation, we went one or two times a year tops. And they actually used to cook(I'm using the term loosely) the patties, crack eggs into the mcmuffin holders, etc. Now it's just utter nonsense but people just don't give a shit. It's almost sad when my wife and I cook for people and they are utterly blown away that things that we prepare can be accomplished at home. It's also sad that some people look at the portions that you may receive at a nice restaurant and feel they are being ripped off because their perception of quality has been totally mucked up by perceiving it as in direct proportion to quantity.

and furthermore since I'm just plain pissy right now, I hate snow, kittens, and tollbooths

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » March 11, 2005, 5:56 pm

thank you moonwynd, i am never ever eating fast food again

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » March 11, 2005, 5:59 pm

Chidoro wrote: Come on, even back when I used to shovel this shit into my maw it wasn't even close to a 50% fuck up ratio.

One particular Jack-In-The-Box in town is. But that was actually more like 70% fucked up.

In general though I would say it's around 50....

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » March 11, 2005, 6:03 pm

Why, was the hot side not hot or the cold side not cold? Ketchup on your sundae? I mean it's burgers and fries, it was never 50% in my experience

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » March 11, 2005, 6:09 pm

I mean of orders.

About 50% of the time there is at least one thing wrong/missing.

Moonwynd · Post by **Moonwynd** » March 11, 2005, 6:12 pm

Chidoro wrote:Why, was the hot side not hot or the cold side not cold?

McDLT reference for the win!!

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » March 11, 2005, 6:14 pm

maybe my mcd's had highly skilled labor

Aside from the occasional diet/regular coke mix up, it was pretty much no biggie

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 11, 2005, 6:22 pm

I have a mental block and ask for mild sauce whenever I go through the Arby's drive through. It's like deja vu when the lady says they have arby's sauce but not mild sauce.

I think all sauce should be called mild sauce. If not that then rename all most popular fastfood sauces, "seekrit sauce".

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » March 11, 2005, 6:33 pm

anybody who uses mild sauce will be exterminated.

fire sauce x 2

Sabek · Post by **Sabek** » March 11, 2005, 6:47 pm

Or theres the chili bucket at Wendy's. Any burgers that get burnt during the day are tossed in a bucket and ground up to be put in tomorrows chili.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » March 11, 2005, 7:03 pm

so cheap mexican labor wasn't cheap enough?

christ

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 11, 2005, 7:21 pm

Voronwë wrote:anybody who uses mild sauce will be exterminated.

fire sauce x 2

Arrrrgh!! My Ass!!!

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » March 11, 2005, 7:32 pm

Chidoro wrote:Come on, even back when I used to shovel this shit into my maw it wasn't even close to a 50% fuck up ratio.

I have to agree with Chidoro here, I have never had anything close to a 50 error ratio. Maybe 5% and I am pretty doubtful that I have seen it even that high.

Kaldaur · Post by **Kaldaur** » March 11, 2005, 8:38 pm

It depends, Chmee. In my hometown, our Wendy's had a 75% rate of failute. My family and I ate there regularly for many years of my childhood, and we noticed they messed up our orders regularly. We decided to tally over the course of a year, and it came out to be wrong about 15 times out of 20.
Of course, I live in the bumbfuck of Illinois, so our average "Wendy's window associate" has no ability to read and a very low information retention rate.

Me-"I'd like a Grilled chicken, plain, and a diet coke please."

Them-"Earth!"

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 11, 2005, 8:40 pm

I never request anything other than what's on the menu at fast food places. If you don't want pickles, scrape them off yourselves lazy asses! It's fast food not a specialty restaurant!

Fash · Post by **Fash** » March 11, 2005, 8:53 pm

i eat only a few items from mcd/wendys.. they fit into my diet ( -12 more lbs since 1/1/05 )

mcd's egg/cheese mcmuffin... what i can't figure out is why sometimes it comes with the white actual cooked egg, but most of the time it has the yellow egg sheet.

wendys spicy chicken sandwich... just the sandwich... if i had to pick a problem with wendy's it would be that they almost assume you're getting a value meal. hold the sugar water and the grease thx.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 11, 2005, 9:00 pm

Just goto subway, they are fucking anal on the rules.

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » March 11, 2005, 9:09 pm

Don't the shit stains make them hard to read?

Fash · Post by **Fash** » March 11, 2005, 9:12 pm

Sionistic wrote:Just goto subway, they are fucking anal on the rules.

Subway... everyone i go to now has 3 different people touching your fucking sandwich. what did you get again?

the original subway method... 1 person makes your sub from start to finish, and does the register.

the new one... where 1 person takes your order and cuts the bread and tells person 2 what you ordered, who then asks you what kind of cheese you want while putting the meat in.. and then passes it on to person 3 for condiments.... who goes to person 4 at the register with what you ordered. sometimes the cheese person does the condiments too. it still sucks.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » March 11, 2005, 9:45 pm

Moonwynd wrote: 2. Never be rude to waitstaff or food prep/cooks no matter what eating establishment you are visiting. I saw someone spit on a plate of pasta at a restaurant once...because the customer was rude and sent the first plate back...and made an embarrassing scene.

Had this rule for a long time; never send anything back to the kitchen. If it's inedible don't eat it and don't pay.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 11, 2005, 10:09 pm

Subway has got to be pretty low on the desirable fast food job list. There are way too many variables that can go wrong...too much salt, not enough, too many onions, not enough lettuce, more mayo...count out seven slices of ham, fold them properly, which one of our 50 choices of bread would you like? Want that heated up?

Fuck you! Put some plastic gloves on and come make it yourself!

That job should pay 20/hour to deal with all the anal people that order subs each day.

I want a fast food place that you can walk/drive up to, swipe your card and take a prepackaged meal, all within 10 seconds. Maybe four meal options with zero modifications allowed. One two three or four...and out the door! I'd be their best customer.

Costco comes pretty close. They have three types of sliced pizza, a berry smoothie or soft drink, giant pretzel or ice cream sunday, and that's it. (maybe hot dogs or something). The line moves fast!

Kyoto Bowl takes 2nd place for ease of ordering a Large Teriyaki Chicken Bowl to go.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 11, 2005, 10:15 pm

That job should pay 20/hour to deal with all the anal people that order subs each day

I only make 8.05 :/

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » March 11, 2005, 11:53 pm

I thought it was funny when the McDonald's in the small town in Kansas that I used to live in built a little booth along the drive through for a person to sit in and take your orders to make it more "personal." This way you knew at least one person that screwed your order up and you could go throw it at the booth (no, I didn't do this personally but it did happen). It was humorous during the extreme weather moments (Heat, Snow, Hail, etc).

Sheryl · Post by **Sheryl** » March 12, 2005, 2:18 am

Fash wrote:mcd's egg/cheese mcmuffin... what i can't figure out is why sometimes it comes with the white actual cooked egg, but most of the time it has the yellow egg sheet.

the english muffins are supposed to have the real cooked egg. that yellow egg sheet crap comes out of a carton and is supposed to be served on the biscuits. it's "a real egg product" or whatever. on the rare occasions that i eat breakfast there i go for the english muffins just so i get a real egg.

i think the call center is overkill. that's a lot of money to spend setting that up just to put the orders right on the screen, which i really don't think is much of a problem now that they have the little screens showing you your order right at the drive thru box.

around here the fast food joint with the largest fuck up rate is probably a toss up between del taco and burger king.

in n out burger somehow manages to get it right every time, but they hire smart people and pay them more money. not like CEO money, but last i heard (in 1995) it was at least $10/hr.

Truant · Post by **Truant** » March 12, 2005, 9:04 am

And to be perfectly honest. What time I served in the food service, 99% of the time, the CUSTOMER forgot to order it special, or just flat out ordered the wrong thing. Then LIED and said I or my coworkers gave the wrong food out.

And they left the establishment really believing they were right.

Drolgin Steingrinder · Post by **Drolgin Steingrinder** » March 12, 2005, 2:13 pm

On the rare occasions I go to one of those fast food joints, I make sure to order my "food" so annoyingly specific that they have to make it right there and then. Sure, I might have to wait 5 minutes but that's better than getting something from the slop bucket.

Post by **Xouqoa** » March 12, 2005, 5:14 pm

Why don't they just put some kind of durable touch screen LCD in the drive through lane and let people order their own shit? Fucking duh.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » March 12, 2005, 7:36 pm

Truant wrote:And to be perfectly honest. What time I served in the food service, 99% of the time, the CUSTOMER forgot to order it special, or just flat out ordered the wrong thing. Then LIED and said I or my coworkers gave the wrong food out.

And they left the establishment really believing they were right.

I ran into that one time....once. Other times I can read the receipt and it says what I actually ordered, but what is in the bag looks nothing like it. This has happened to me so much at Taco Cabana that I gave up on the Drive-thru and just order to-go.

Brotha · Post by **Brotha** » March 12, 2005, 7:38 pm

My worst experiences have been at Wendys. For the longest time I'd order a non-spicy chicken sandwich (like number 10 was not spicy, 11 was), and they'd ALWAYS give me the spicy one. I really think they didn't know that they were even supposed to differentiate between the two. This happened every single time, even when I'd also say "that's the non-spicy one please."

Wendys making the homestyle chicken sandwich was a godsend for me, they haven't messed it up since because there're other differences between the two now.

Also, for awhile when I'd say "JUST cheese and mayonnaise" guess what they'd do? You've got it, put everything EXCEPT cheese and mayonnaise on it. I'd say it more than once and I have an easy to understand voice, I really don't know how they could mess it up so many times.

At Jack in the Box and Macdonalds those ordering screens where you can view it as the cashier types it in have helped a lot. There've been several times where they've messed something up and I've been able to correct them. They're still not 100 percent though.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 12, 2005, 8:31 pm

A flaw of the McDonalds meal #s:

#6 is the Chicken McGrill but when I order number six, many times it doesn't click with the McDonalds order taker and I get the 6 piece McNugget meal. McDonalds should be smart enough to know that it would be wise to associate the 6 piece McNugget Meal with #6. This would save a lot of bad order taking and I would get my McGrill.

I also noticed back when I was still eating Quarter Pounders, McDonalds rearranged their numbers so that #3 became the double quarter pounder with cheese and they moved the quarter pounder meal to #4. All of the long time #3 people had the opportunity to screw up by just asking for their normal #3 and they'd end up with the more expensive double quarterpounder meal. I think they did that one on purpose.

Scams!

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 12, 2005, 8:34 pm

Xouqoa wrote:Why don't they just put some kind of durable touch screen LCD in the drive through lane and let people order their own shit? Fucking duh.

Because then the illegal immigrants and illiterates would file a law suit against them.

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » March 12, 2005, 8:35 pm

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote: Because then the illegal immigrants and illiterates would file a law suit against them.

I'd better not see that happen and them win...

Moonwynd · Post by **Moonwynd** » March 12, 2005, 8:45 pm

When I ordered my weekly salad last week through the McDonalds' drive thru window...the computer screen at the drive thru menu read "It is now safe to turn off your computer"

Running on Windows 9x...no wonder they have problems...

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 12, 2005, 11:13 pm

Lohrno wrote:
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote: Because then the illegal immigrants and illiterates would file a law suit against them.
I'd better not see that happen and them win...

Welcome to todays liberal America. This would happen.

Why else would there be an option when you call places for the call to be in Spanish? Why else would there be schools in America that have Spanish as their primary language? It's a fucked up time right now.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » March 12, 2005, 11:22 pm

Why else would there be an option when you call places for the call to be in Spanish?

Yet you would expect to make calls in English in France, Sweden or any other country. Double standards at it's best.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 12, 2005, 11:32 pm

Whats wrong with places having spanish options? The only problem I see is places not having spanish and people complaining about that. However that isnt liberalism, thats capitalism.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 13, 2005, 12:05 am

Kelshara wrote:
Why else would there be an option when you call places for the call to be in Spanish?
Yet you would expect to make calls in English in France, Sweden or any other country. Double standards at it's best.

No....I don't. Why the fuck would they have English options in France. If you go to France, you whould learn to speak the language.