Call Centers May Handle McDonald's (Drive thru!!) Orders

[rainbow4321]

http://www.baytownsun.com/wire.lasso?report=/dynamic/stories/M/MCDONALDS_DRIVE_THRU?SITE=TXBAY&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

McDonald's Corp., the world's largest restaurant chain, is testing the use of remote call centers to handle drive-thru orders in an effort to improve service.

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 at the drive-thru window.

"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 Officer Jim Skinner said during a presentation to analysts Thursday in New York.

The strategy would help process orders faster and allow McDonald's employees to focus on delivering better customer service, the company said.

[ProgressiveConn]

1. Translation.

The strategy would help process orders faster and allow McDonald's employees to focus on delivering better customer service

The strategy would help process orders cheaper and allows McDonalds to avoid having to pay employees in high wage areas and instead allows them to pay them in low wage areas.

[Lori Price CLG]

19. Exactamundo, ProgressiveCT! And btw, yes - dump LieberBush n/t

[BadGimp]

22. Like India

how hrad can it be to take a McDonalds order..

[XemaSab]

59. Said in "Apu" accent:

"I am sorry, but eating beef is not allowed in my religion. Would you care to make another order?"

[LiberalFighter]

75. And use the work rules of that state

[VegasWolf]

78. Jobs! We don't need no stinkin jobs! Let someone in India answer

the damn intercom so we shareholders can make a few extra bucks
to pay for that country club membership. Idiots.

[nashville_brook]

95. what could go wrong with THAT?

:)

[atommom]

2. We'll get better service if we talk to someone who's not even there?

There are so many things wrong with that idea that I don't even know where to start. For one thing, won't this increase their costs, as long as everyone still has to be paid minimum wage? Or are they planning to send our fast food orders overseas and back? The mind reels.

[Squatch]

3. What if they outsourced to India?

"I'm sorry, sir, we cannot sell you beef at this McDonalds"

[rainbow4321]

13. "North Dakota accent", my ass....

Uh-huh...next they will be convincing us that <insert state here> "demographics" is 99.9% Indian/Phillipino/Mexican/any other cheap labor outsourcing favorite of the corp. execs.

[Lizzie Borden]

82. Yeah man, people in North Dakota don't have accents.

[despairing optimist]

68. What if the international lines got crossed and al-Zawahiri took the order

Would he say, "Wait a minute," and hand the phone to Osama? Would the confusion somehow be mistaken for a go signal on their next operation? Would my fries be cold again?

[napi21]

4. I also heard they are testing some new machines...

that the customer would enter his own order, see the info on a screen, pay for it with either cash or a credit card, and just pick it up at a window. The idea is that it would eliminate mistakes made by the clerks, employees would be doing what there's really there for (which is to cook and process the orders), and save time.

I actually prefer the machine idea to the central call center, but both should work better than the current system where I can't understand at least half of the clerks, and they don't seem to understand me either!

[leesa]

51. How many mistakes are there? It's not like it's an extensive menu.

This is sooooo transparent.

[jayfish]

54. The Mistakes...

are made during order fulfillment, not order placement. They have LCD displays now that show your order as it is entered into the system. If their is an error in the actual order placement it is shared by the customer. This is just a bullshit outsourcing vehicle.

Jay

[Poppyseedman]

87. Are you kidding me?

Every single time I drive a fast food place, I check the bag. About 25% of the time it's wrong.

If I know how to order in Spanish, it would probably be right 100% of the time.

Not knocking Hispanic people, but the fast food restaurants need to put people in the window who can clearly speak and understand English.

[JerseygirlCT]

66. I prefer this system, too. A visually impaired person is far less likely

to be managing the drive-through. So why not use visuals instead of scratchy, hard to understand, speech? Just let me press the damned buttons, get exactly what I ordered, pay my money and get out of there!

[IronLionZion]

76. Sheetz does that right now

they've been doing it for years Western Pennsylvanians know how it is to order on a machine.

And it's not too hard to program either. I was involved in a school project where we made a food ordering machine. That would be better than a call center.

[tubbacheez]

5. No surprise. Heck, McDonalds would turn all restaurants into...

... giant vending machines if they had cheap enough technology to do it.

No employees at all, except a kid who unloads the restocking truck every morning. Voice-recognition software takes your order. Payment is by debit card (or credit card with extra fee). Food is robotically moved from storage to microwave and served hot.

They'll do it as soon as it's cheap enough.

[yeababy]

12. Thats just great! Now we can all feel like some animal at the fair n/t

[mbperrin]

23. Here ya go.

Big Mac? Big Tec!

McDonald's turns to technology for a boost, trying its hand at automated convenience stores; DVD machines; chat orders; WiFi; and online advertising

http://www.springwise.com/newbusinessideas/2003/05/big_tec.html

snip

In the Washington, D.C. area, McDonald's seems interested in following in Yatoo Partoo and Shop2000's footsteps (see our March 2003 article), testing fully automated, stand-alone convenience stores under the name 'Red Box'. The refrigerated units are about the size of a minivan and sell food, drinks, laundry detergent and other products.

more

[tubbacheez]

28. I knew it! How can they resist the temptation? They can't. n/t

[jmowreader]

80. Why would they need a kid to unload the truck?

Raymond makes robotic forklifts. These things are the SHIT, man. The last time our mechanic was in the store, he told me how the Raymond system works:

A robotic-forklift warehouse has an antenna wire laid in the concrete. It describes the path the forklifts are supposed to travel.

Each machine has an ID number, and all of the racking is barcoded although they're considering moving to RFID on the racking. As the machines move through the warehouse, they report their positions.

This system currently works through in-house requests--go to the skids of Charmin, get two of them and put them on the truck in bay 49. When Raymond gets the whole thing up and running, the computer will be able to figure out how to load the truck for best weight distribution, figure out which reach trucks are closest to which items in the load, and automatically load the whole truck based on EDI requests sent to the warehouse from the stores. It will also be able to do weight-based scheduling: if the load must weigh at least 35,000 pounds, at this time if you send in a 25,000-pound order it usually gets rejected. With weight-based scheduling, it will accumulate orders until you cross the 35,000-lb threshold.

Using case-level RFID and robotic forklifts, a McDonald's could do all of its logistics with no manual intervention. You'd receive buns in cartridges--crowns in one tube, heels in another. You'd receive patties in cartridges. Lettuce would be preshredded and tomatoes presliced. The truck would pull up to the loading dock. A robotic forklift would unload it and put all of the SKUs in their places in the warehouse. It would load cartridges of food items into preparing machines. McDonald's would move to BK-style flame broilers because they pull the food through them on conveyor belts--much more efficient than microwave ovens.

And for total automation...imagine your navigation system as an ordering terminal. You pull into the McDonald's parking lot and the restaurant's ordering webpage comes up on your nav screen. You punch in what you want. Speedpass-like technology handles payment. You park until your nav system tells you to pull up to the window to get your food. Take it and go.

I don't think they'd eliminate ALL staff--you'd need a mechanic to unjam the machines and you'd want human waitstaff.

The sickest part of all this? They could do the whole thing. Right now.

[tubbacheez]

99. Cost is reason I envisioned a kid doing the restocking, but..

hey... your version of the future would not be too far downstream from mine.


Cheers!

[jmowreader]

102. The Raymond robotic kit only costs $63,000

$45,000 of that is the reach truck and its charger (assuming you buy a new one; you can order a used one for less than $20,000 right off Raymond's website), the rest is the system that guides it. You can even put it on the Raymond you already have! It's a retrofit kit; a box plugs into the computer network on the truck and feeds it guidance signals from an antenna loop embedded into the floor. You'd need two people to replace the machine, and if they make $18,000 a year each, ROI on the Raymond system is reached in about two years--once again, assuming you get a new one.

Your vision of the future is shockingly like the old Automats in New York City. I can see a completely automated back end, but if they automated the front end, what would happen to all the teenagers who fuck up your change and fuck up your order? Man, one of the things I look forward to when I eat fast food is the excitement of opening the bag and getting a meal that bears absolutely no resemblance to the one I ordered.

On edit: I swear I didn't see post 92 before I wrote that!

[tubbacheez]

103. Yeah, $65k per McDonald's restaurant is a tad steep.

I'm not saying it's expensive. I'm saying it's not cheap enough yet for McDonald's to convert all their restaurants.

I'm sure the robotic kit is a bargain by some comparisions.




Whether it's a redux of the Automat, or simply a giant vending machine on steroids, the whole McDonald's business model is based on consistency. The original idea wasn't necessarily great food. It was decent food that you could absolutely count on everywhere you saw the Golden Arches (TM).

It's the comfort of eating familiar food in a familiar setting, no matter what city you're in, that they are marketing.

So what could be more consistent than making all the food at a few central factories, distributing it all over, and serving it with programmed automation (instead of error-prone and variation-prone humans)?



I'm with you; sometimes it's fun to enjoy the human goof-ups and variability. That's why I'll never open a McDonald's franchise.

But McDonald's doesn't find such fun to be profitable. Hence my imagining how far they'll take this automation concept.

[BR_Parkway]

105. Think again, the burn through rate of labor dollars for a typical McD's

is probably close to $1,000 per day by the time they are open from Breakfast through 10 or midnight, match taxes and such - they could pay for one of these machines every 2 months

[tubbacheez]

108. Ok, so let 'em know they're missing out on...

... the Next Big Thing (tm) by waiting any longer. :)

[vogonjiltz]

89. I think they ...

had vending machine restaurants in the 40s and 50s, I forget what they were called.

[flygal]

92. Automats

It was basically a cafeteria - I think some places you didn't even pay individually for each item, just piled them on a tray and paid the cashier.

[yeababy]

6. Unionize!

Someone should form a fast food employee union. I mean what are these people getting paid? $4.50 an hour? $5.50 an hour? McDonalds should have to pay extra wages for those working around grease. I can't imagine the health risks associated with just breathing in that place.

[HockeyMom]

11. Elimination of Low Skilled Jobs

The supermarket chains and even Home Depo around here have been eliminating chashier positions. It is now scan, ring up, and pay for your own merchandise.

[yeababy]

16. We have that crap here too. I prefer personal interaction w/ humans. n/t

[Skittles]

53. I don't mind running a few items through a self-scanner

but I resent doing a whole basket - sorry, that is f***ing WORK and I have noticed no corresponding drop in prices to make up for the cashiers they fired.

[msanthrope]

56. I refuse to use those damn things---

My husband actually started yelling at one. Why? Because it wouldn't go fast enough. It also didn;t recognize half the damn produce we bought.

[JerseygirlCT]

67. I'm sorry, but often, I don't

I work faster and can get gone faster than waiting on the long lines for cashiers.

My regular grocery shopping, we'll wait for a cashier. And I know the personnel at the store well enough to know who's good and who to avoid. But on those running in for one quick thing trips? I want out of there, pronto.

I guess I'm just impatient. Philosophically, I understand that these stores are asking me to work for free, and putting out of work some cashier, all so they can make a few more bucks. But my time is money, too, in that sense. Now, maybe if they actually had enough cashiers so that dealing with a live person didn't mean waiting forever...

[Mike Daniels]

109. Given the poor customer service skills exhibited by clerks at most stores

I don't see the disadvantage in using a machine.

Why put up with someone who doesn't even make eye contact with the customer much less seem slightly attentive to the job he/she is doing.

[atommom]

14. These are scary times for people who work in "unskilled" jobs.

Firms are bending over backwards to eliminate those jobs, and unions are dying out. What kind of future does Corporate America see for those people?

[yeababy]

17. they only see their own future! n/t

[atommom]

20. Yep, and then only up to the next quarterly report... nt

[yeababy]

27. American business has long since decided that the pathway to happiness is

how much money can we make and how fast can we make it. All so some FAT CAT at the top can die rich. I really envy the European thought about work and play.

[sadiesworld]

21. Well, hell...

Take a look at the thread here in LBN about college degrees being of little help. Long term prospects are pretty scary all around. :(

[rainbow4321]

26. North Dakota min. wage is lower.....hence the reference to N.D

Googling McD's, outsourcing, drive thru brought this up....



http://www.kxmc.com/news/local.asp?ID=3940

(AP) _ The McDonald's restaurant in Hermiston, Oregon is outsourcing customers drive-thru meals to North Dakota.

The restaurant on Highway 395 has outsourced one of the most important jobs at the drive-through window -- order taking.

When a customer drives through, they'll be patched through to Grand Forks, North Dakota to place the order. Why? Because the minimum wage in North Dakota is five-dollars and 15 cents, compared to Oregon's seven-dollars and 25 cents.

Tim Nesbit is head of Oregon A-F-L-C-I-O. He says this undercuts Oregon's minimum wage by more than two-dollars an hour.

A McDonald's media relations person in Illinois, where the corporate headquarters is based, never returned a phone call to the A-P.

[atommom]

30. I know it's common business practice, but it still seems

unethical to me. Screwing people over for every dime...

[mcscajun]

38. We desperately need a National Minimum Wage

set at a level that allows people to more than just survive.

I despair of ever seeing it, though.

[RoeBear]

52. I thought we did have a

national minimum wage? $5.15 per hour

[mcscajun]

58. And that's not really much better than survival money.

The point isn't a national minimum wage; the point is a LIVABLE national minimum wage.

[saigon68]

107. The Bush Criminals and their Posse will never let YOU -- "See IT"

Ther Reason of their being is Reverse Robin Hoodism.

STEAL FROM THE POOR

GIVE TO THE RICH.

[mcscajun]

36. This is beyond scary.

We lost our manufacturing base, so we moved from an "industrial economy" to an "information economy" and technical jobs were the way to go; technical training and college degrees were the order of the day.

For the last several years, corporations have been outsourcing and offshoring our technical jobs, and so we're moving to a 'service economy'.

I used to crack wise (when I still had that technical job, before it moved to India, and yes, I had a degree) that we'd all be saying "Do you want fries with that?" to each other not too long from now, and the economy would be tanking, 'cause if nobody's got a decent income, just WHO would we be servicing in this new economy?

Now, they're figuring out ways to eliminate the bottom-rung service jobs? Priceless.

Class war ain't "too far off": It's Here. And We're Losing. How long before the clueless get clued in and take to the battlements?

[Daphne08]

48. You bet we're losing, and I'm wondering

who is going to purchase the products that the corporations make (overseas) after they destroy our American middle class.

I suppose they really don't give a damn!

[mcscajun]

57. Bingo!

You're right. They don't give a damn.

[L.A.dweller]

104. Will the working class just sit

there and do nothing while their jobs are being taken away?

Unskilled workers and immigrants will be affected the most but they are the most under represented minority in America. Who will stand up for them? I don't think anyone will, corporate America doesn't give a shit about them. And average Americans? We're to impatient to wait 5 mins in line for a cashier to ring us up. So we go to the scanner.
We're to impatient to go back into the Mickey D's because are order is wrong and taking 5 mins to correct it is to loooong. So we are grateful for the automated MACHINES.

Is technology really making lives better. No, it isn't. Victims of progress are the under represented minority and working class American's
and those living in 3rd world countries.

[paineinthearse]

34. Industrial Workers of the World

Perfect fit for fast food operations

See recent news at www.iww.org

March 2, 2005 - Pizza Time Workers in Olympia on Strike
March 1, 2005 - Vox Pop Coffee Shop Workers in NYC Join the IWW.

[Xithras]

41. That'll never happen

Fast food tends to have an extremely high turnover. The majority of FF employees are under 21 and just have the jobs to make some extra cash. Most employees last less than three months, and VERY few fast food employees actually make a living at it.

Typically unions only make inroads in industries where people plan on making careers. I have yet to hear anyone, ever, wish for a career flipping burgers at McDonalds.

[bobbieinok]

61. lot of older people/senior citizens working in fast food places in OK

not in your state??????

[Xithras]

62. Only rarely.

I'd say it's 80% under 21's, 10% elderly, and 10% skilless adults (most of whom take these types of jobs for second or third incomes).

[AgadorSparticus]

91. just read in the paper that the FF joints are pushing to hire older/

seniors and SAHM's to fill in during the critical lunch hours here in Tucson.

[HockeyMom]

100. Part time

All the fast food chains, retail stores, supermarkets, etc., here in NY ONLY hire part time (of course, no BENEFITS). So who will you get? Teenagers, housewives, and retired people. ONE person cannot live on a part time weekly salary, let alone a family. That mother with the three kids and three part time jobs who Bush laughed at is going to become the average American very soon.

[Mist]

7. The lengths to which corporate America will go to save a few bucks

is truly bizaare. I think they're off the deep end with this one.

[OhioChick]

8. I Heard of Them

Doing this a while back. :puke:


Want fries with outsourcing?
Michael Fitzgerald NYT Monday, July 19, 2004
Pull off U.S. Interstate Highway 55 near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and into the drive-through lane of a McDonald's next to the highway and you'll get fast, friendly service, even though the person taking your order is not in the restaurant - or even in Missouri.
.
The order taker is in a call center in Colorado Springs, more than 900 miles, or 1,450 kilometers, away, connected to the customer and to the workers preparing the food by high-speed data lines. Even some restaurant jobs, it seems, are not immune to outsourcing.
.
The man who owns the Cape Girardeau restaurant, Shannon Davis, has linked it and three other of his 12 McDonald's franchises to the Colorado call center, which is run by another McDonald's franchisee, Steven Bigari. And he did it for the same reasons that other business owners have embraced call centers: lower costs, greater speed and fewer mistakes.

http://www.iht.com/articles/529970.html

[BR_Parkway]

106. Weren't they using prisons as the call centers in Colorador? Under the

guise of "rehabilitation and job training"? So now you have a labor force making $2-3 per day, there's probably even some Fed money (faith based?) in it for the Bigari operation.

<on edit>

First they outsourced the factory jobs
and I did not stop buying cheap overseas junk
because I didn't work in a factory.

Then they outsourced the IT jobs
and I did not stop using companies that did this
because I was not in IT.

Then they outsourced the fast food workers
and I did not stop ordering quick easy food from them
because I didn't work for McDonalds.

Then I got laid off from my job
and because there was no one left to buy from me.

[atommom]

9. Maybe they should just bring back the Auto-mat idea, and let

everyone serve themselves. Honestly, that sounds like less of a hassle than outsourcing the order-taking.

http://www.theautomat.net/

[HockeyMom]

33. I remember them

but at least that required a lot of cooks. They had a hell of a lot more variety than McD's. They even had full course dinners (if you liked that version of a full course dinner).

[Yavin4]

10. Don't Worry There Are Plenty of Jobs In The Military for America's Youth

And plenty of wars to boot.

[shadowknows69]

15. north dakota accent?

more likely an indian accent

[cornermouse]

18. I called them yesterday and told them that if they did

they would lose at least one customer.

[EVDebs]

24. This gives new meaning to "Foreigners are eating our lunch" n/t

[Emboldened Chimp]

25. People are still eating McDonald's?

Haven't you folks read Fast Food Nation or seen Super Size Me? How anyone can eat this shit even occasionally is beyond my comprehension.

[tubbacheez]

29. Sad, isn't it?

Ah, the power of marketing.

[yeababy]

32. their hamburger patties look as though a tractor trailor tire ran over it

[mcscajun]

40. It may start with McDonald's but it won't end there.

I agree with you about not eating their crap, so it doesn't bother me on that level. I swore off fast food of all kinds some time ago.

[jayfish]

71. Yup, The Cats Out Of The...

bag on this one. If they can do it from a mile away they can do it from 8125 miles away (special bonus to anyone who can guess the two points). If one company does it and even saves a penny you can bet you sweet bippy the rest will fall all over themselves to save the same. It's not about McDonald's, it's about the elimination of America. First manufacturing, then service then menial then everyone is poor. It gets uglier and uglier by the day.

Jay

[NMDemDist2]

88. bingo! I was a fast food addict due to laziness and disposable income

now I'm broke, eating at home, saving scads of $$$ and losing weight without even trying

screw Mickey D's!

[paineinthearse]

31. Would you like chutney with that? nt

[atommom]

35. Hell, I probably WOULD eat at McD's if I could buy Indian food there!

Mmmm.

[yeababy]

37. oh no you wouldn't

if they can't make an american hamburger taste good, what do you think the indian food would taste like?

[atommom]

39. Gack! You're right. I stand corrected.

:puke:

[Blue Gardener]

42. Their food sucks anyway

Never have understood why anyone would want to eat that crap.

[rainbow4321]

47. If McD's gets away with it...

and show that they save $$ from doing so, how far behind do you think the rest of the fast food places will be...they'd do it in a heartbeat. They'll be trying to tell us that this "improves" service. Tell that to the locals who no longer will have a job/can't get a job. This whole concept could get out of hand if it catches on and spreads...of course, shrub and his cronies won't step in cuz it ain't his elite base that will be losing the outsourced service, low paying jobs.

[DS1]

43. Food delivery without localized repercussions scares me

In other words, what's to stop a disgruntled call-center employee from giving you extra mustard, when you asked for none, and doesn't have to deal with your shit?

[Piperay]

44. Bullshit!!!

This is nothing but a cheapskate ploy to screw the employees out of paying them decently. Who the hell do they think they are fooling, oh yeah, repukes...they will believe the bullshit! :puke:

[AuntiBush]

45. Just when you think you've HEARD IT ALL!

Oh, it's got to be Freaky-Friday!

Yeah, their strategy is to trace your number, and who/what/when/where you live and in comes the junk mailings like I'm getting lately from OK to KS and back!

:kick:

[atommom]

46. Another likely scenario ... what happens if phones/computers are

down? Could an industrial hacker do that? (Not that I'm advocating that. Just wondering.)

[acmejack]

50. Wall street journal headline...

Fast food worker productivity soars... oh yeah, wage growth stagnant!

[renoray]

63. Why bother hacking?

If they have no employees, just put an "out of order" sign on their vending machine. Who is going to come out and remove it?

[leesa]

49. Why on earth do people eat this shit in the first place?

And if that North Dakota accent sounds like it's an Indian accent...?

[obxhead]

55. first we allow migrant worker cards

because there are just some jobs we Americans refuse to do. Now we export those jobs too? hmmm...

[XemaSab]

60. Be warned:

Indian call centers train people to sound like Americans, and they're GOOD. Someone with a North Dakota accent may actually be in Bangalore. Friedman did a piece on this not too long ago.

The most evil evil part is that they train people to sound like the region they'll be working with mostly. So if you're in Minnesota, and the person on the other end is giving you the "oh yah," it's likely to be an Indian.

[HockeyMom]

64. BINGO

My husband took a woman to the airport while he was driving a limo(off shored from IT job). Started talking to her and she said she worked for an Off shoring Company and was going to Bangalore to teach them how to speak English with a Brooklyn accent.

He told her his IT job was off shored to India. When they got to the airport, she handed him a $100 tip. He told her to take her money and put it where the sun doesn't shine. He said that one day was worth all the time he had to spend driving a limo.

[LeftyMom]

73. They're not very good at it, in my experience

I've had lots of fun with Bangalore tech suppourt, between my stupid Lexmark all-in-one and my SBC DSL (both for work, not purchased by me.)

I've noticed a few things are a complete giveaway, the most obvious being inability to understand coloqualisms such as "the printer's on the fritz." Another is complete ignorance of US geography, I told the DSL guy my connection wasn't working. He asked if I was near any known service outages "Is Sacramento near Alameda? Is Sacramento near St Louis? Is Sacramento near Albany?" For the most part, I've also noticed that thier "Americanized" accents still sound vaugely British, and thier phone names are all really, really white bread.

[rainbow4321]

93. And when they flunk the accent class...

the jobs then get sent to the Phillipines..not long ago there was a webpage that said companies were taking the jobs away from India and sending them to the Phillipines because the workers there had less of an accent than the India population/workers. Here's a fucking concept for them...if they left the jobs HERE in the US, they would not have to worry about the whole friggin accent issue, now would they????

[JerseygirlCT]

65. You've got to be kidding me!

It's hard enough to hear the person over the short-range intercom... now we're supposed to decode a person from states, or even countries, away?

Why don't they just have visuals? With buttons to push for what you want?

[Kimber Scott]

69. More like and Indian, or Pakistani accent. The only accents we hear

here are Mexican or American accents, or both. How would placing your order hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away improve customer service? I hate this stuff. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

I don't eat McDonald's but it's the principle I hate. What's wrong with supporting your local community by hiring the people who live there? If they're going to kill people off with their crap, shut out mom and pops, they could, at least, hire a local.

[PartyPooper]

70. Solution: just park your car and walk into the restaurant and get it

"to go".

Or, just boycott fast food altogether!

:-)

[robbedvoter]

72. remedy: go see "Supersize this". You'll know what to do.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

101. Or read Fast Food Nation

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060938455/002-9737355-5552048

Both may cure some folks of fast food cravings...

[KamaAina]

74. "Yes? I'd like a nine-piece McNuggets, large fries, and..."

(click) (hummmmmmmmmmm) (beep beep BEEP) "If you would like to make a call, please dial the area code and number and try again. 206-02."

[Pithy Cherub]

84. That'll be $7.92 for the order and $108.96 for the call?

Would you like to pay cash or credit card... drive to the next window please...

[LiberalFighter]

77. Article doesn't say how they will do this...

satellite dish?

How often will their be interference?

[jayfish]

83. I'd Guess VOIP -NT-

Jay

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

79. I like this idea

Just think of the fun you can have, tormenting the remote person answering the speaker?

Have all the fun, say whatever you want, to a person hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away.

When you place your order, tell them you would like to order a living wage job.

Or just talk some silly stuff.

This remote fast food ordering idea is stupid. Doubt it will work.

[Robert Oak]

81. think about it

they can hire illegals behind the counter...since our government
doesn't bother to do anything about it...ignore what's left
of our employment laws, they don't speak English and now
they don't have to at all.

the only good news is this isn't going to work...
and considering McDonalds kills ya...that isn't such a bad consequence.

[Neshanic]

85. Hello. Welcome to holy cow killing McDonalds, try salad?

Voice: Welcome to the McDonalds can I take order?
You: Yes a quarter pounder no cheese and no tomamto,large fries and a large coke.
Voice: Yes, and that would be a quarter pound?
You: Yes.
Voice: With the largest fries?
You: No the next to the largest, not the humongous.
Voice: The Hummis?
You: No, not the extra large, the large only.
Voice: The quarter pounder comes only in one size.
You: No, the fries. Just make the FRIES large, not extra large.
Voice: A quarter pound and large fries with a extra large coke.
You: No, just a large coke, not the extra large.
Voice: See order on screen please to see if correct.

Screen shows Fish Fillet, chocolate shake and McDonaldLand coookies.

You: That is not right.
Voice: I understand your concern. What is wrong?
You: It's the wrong order.
Voice: The connection is slow so please pull forward to next window to pay.

Pay person: That will be 27.98.
You: You must have the wrong order.
Pay person: Let me call order central and see what the problem is.
Pay person on phone...The order reference number 17899935-afrk-5662289 Scottsdale is mixed with order 78823090029903-aihshkj-Pomona. Yes...Yes... Ok...I will hold for update.....OK got it. Your order is 5.89.
You: thanks
Pay person: now pull up to the delivery window.

Delivery window slides open, three bags handed to you.
You: This is not my order.
Window guy: Let me check with pay window....yes, what? OK sattelite delay? Ok...give me thos back please. Here is yours,

You drive away, get home and have a quarter pounder with cheese and tomato, extralarge fries and McDonaldland cookies.

[Us vs Them]

86. BOYCOTT

Just one more reason not to eat at McDonalds.

Shall we review?

Horrible employee treatment
Deforestation for cattle grazing
It will fucking poison you
Feeds corporate greed
And now outsourcing to boot

[pauliedangerously]

90. Who cares?

Who eats that crap anyway?

[jayfish]

96. So Short Sighted.

It's not about McDonald's. It's about American jobs.

Jay

[Chrisduhfur]

94. Brilliant idea.

At least from a bean counters point of view. However, I do not think this would fly. Why? Because even if they do not ship the jobs out to other countries, people will still believe they are. Since people do not like the idea of their jobs being shipped out overseas, they will tend to avoid McDonalds. It would be much easier to avoid mcdonalds too, why go there when you could cross the street and go to Burger King etc?

Not to mention, the customer service value. Anyone who has ever spoken to an idiot techsupport guy in India, knows how annoying it can be. Sadly it tends to be something we have to deal with when/if we buy computers from large manufactures, but there is no reason to have that problem with restaurants.

IF they try it, I am sure they will quickly switch back to the old way.

[jayfish]

97. Sigh!

Make no mistake about it. Once McDonald's does this ALL fast-food restaurants will follow suit. "Have to stay competitive" ya know. The people who buy from these establishments will care not one single bit. ..if they even know about it.

Jay

[Lorien]

98. North Dakota minimum wage: $5.15, CA $6.75

any questions?