McDonald’s Corp. is planning to hire call center employees to take drive-thru orders, according to a Reuters wire report.
“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,” said Jim Skinner, chief executive officer for McDonald’s, at the Bear Stearns Retail, Restaurant and Apparel Conference on Thursday.
Having call center employees take drive-thru orders can improve efficiency and order accuracy, which McDonald’s has had trouble with in the past. I am told that this is something that is already being tested in Los Angeles-area McDonald’s restaurants, not something on the drawing board.
Fargo, eh? Wait until McDonald’s finds out about Bangalore. Then we’ll really have confusion at the drive-thru. On second thought, I don’t think they could find anyone in India willing to sell people hamburgers, but they definitely could do it in Manila or any of several other Asian cities where outsourcing runs rampant. And, at least in Los Angeles, it’s likely that few would notice.
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Ryan Duff
Mar 13, 2005
Each McDonalds serves different food based on location. For example, in some New England McDonalds you can get a “crab cake sandwich”, not available in Pennsylvania.
Also, how do they know that a milk shake machine is broken or if they’re temporarilly out of something. Only the employees at that location know that. What if you order a milk shake only to get to the window to find out they can’t serve you one. Doesn’t sound like a bright idea to me.
Brian Rose
Mar 13, 2005
This is easily combatted by having ordering offices divided by region/state and having completely computerized menus. With a nice UI, I can see this working quite well.
Something tells me that these problems aren’t hard to handle if McDonalds is already able to roll out technology that will forward calls to another state’s office and allow those employees to take orders remotely. The store employees would simply call a number, give their store code, and let the regional/main office know they are having a problem.
John
Mar 19, 2005
McDonalds has been doing this for quite a while, two or three months at least in Minnesota. I don’t think there’s been a huge jump in order accuracy or efficiency, as someone in the restaraunt generally still needs to listen in in case there are problems.
Eric
Mar 21, 2005
For a fascinating story about the ultimate end-game of this, read “Manna” by Marshall Brain (available free online at http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm).
Jason
Nov 30, 2005
I am doing a paper at school about McDonalds drive thru accuracy. i am wondering if they have thought of using the MTO screens for better accuarcy.
Michael Hampton
Nov 30, 2005
Several fast food places have started using video screens in their drive-thru lanes which show the customer’s order as it is placed, either in text or in pictures, though I’ve never seen one at a McDonald’s. And I wasn’t able to find any evidence from a couple of quick Google searches that they had begun doing so, even as a test.