What would happen when something unexpected is thrown into an incredibly systematic situation? Take a look at the setting of a toy factory that runs in an assembly line. Let’s say a worker was drinking something by his station and spills some of his drink into a machine. The machine probably will stop working and the process of making the toy will become chaotic. Just like this scenario, McDonalds used to be disorderly when it had to take customized orders that strayed too far from its set menu. Employees did not know how to fulfill orders that weren’t straightforwardly labeled on their cash register either. Probably because of the complaints for poor service and competing fast food chains like Burger King succeeding in fulfilling their slogan, “Have It Your Way,” McDonalds realized that it had to improve employee-customer relations. Thus, its customer service has surely improved, and it can be seen through a simple experiment.
On April 10th, I walked into the McDonalds located at 213 Madison Street with a Spanish-speaking friend around 3:30pm. I figured that since the neighborhood was mostly Hispanic, the employees would be bilingual. My friend could translate the employees’ remarks made in Spanish (if any).
I asked the cashier for “1 small hamburger with exactly 4 pickles and 1 small order of well done fries with no salt” and the receipt. Due to the cashier’s difficulty in comprehending me and entering what I asked for into the register, I repeated the full order. She still had trouble understanding my request for exactly 4 pickles but eventually realized that she could enter it in as “extra pickles.” Because she didn’t understand the word “salt,” my friend had to say it to her in Spanish, and after 1 minute and 20 seconds, she finally took my order.
When the cashier went to tell the workers in the back my order, she remarked that “She (me) is trying to make us work” in Spanish and joked about it with them. Then, she went to check on the fries. She started pacing around the register area probably because she had nothing to do but to wait for my order to be completed. When she came by my way, I asked her for the receipt again because she had forgotten to give it to me after I paid, and she apologized for the mistake. She walked back to the workers in the back and joked around with them a little more in Spanish. After, she told me that my fries will take a little longer and that I could sit down first and she’d let me know when my order was ready, which was nice of her to say. (I continued waiting by the counter so that I could observe them better.) To make sure she grabbed the right one, she kept asking one worker, “Is this my burger? Is this my burger?” She then walked to get the well done fries with no salt, packed my order, gave it to me, smiled and wished me a nice day.
My order was completed in 5 minutes and 53 seconds, which is a bit long to carry out a small order when the place isn’t busy but understandable because a new batch of fries had to be made. A total of 3 workers got involved – the cashier and the 2 kitchen workers. From what I experienced and understood, I thought the service was good, but when my friend told me what the cashier said in Spanish, I was irked a bit. If I was a consultant to McDonalds, I’d recommend that employees keep comments to themselves or say them when customers aren’t around. The order preparation was okay, considering the fact that they stayed calm while fulfilling my special requests. Communication could have been better. She should have understood the English word for “salt,” so I’d recommend that the cashiers’ English-speaking and comprehension skills are up to par, or at least be enough to take down an order correctly and fully, which can then improve efficiency. Coordination-wise, the workers did well, except when the cashier got nervous when she didn’t understand me fully while taking my order and when entering it into the register. She shouldn’t have been pacing either because it made it obvious that she was bored; she could have spent that time talking to me, the customer. My only other suggestion is for McDonalds to come up with a better way to relay specific customized orders to the kitchen staff because the cashier I dealt with had to keep shouting to the back to make sure they got my order for my hamburger correct. This way, things would be more efficient and the cashiers can spend more time interacting with the customers.
For the most part, my experience at McDonalds was okay. It did a decent job fulfilling its mission statement of being “the world's best quick service restaurant experience… so that [it can] make every customer in every restaurant smile." (http://www.samples-help.org.uk/mission-statements/mcdonalds-mission-statement.htm). I left smiling so I say McDonalds does a job well done when something like unexpected, customized orders come its way.
No comments:
Post a Comment