McDonald’s to Expand Kiosks, Delivery, Menu to Draw Customers
McDonald’s making drastic changes.
Fast food giant McDonald’s has lost a few customers and wants to win them back. Executives plan to expand the company’s “delivery, mobile and kiosk-ordering options as it looks to cut costs.” From CNBC:
“Through enhanced technology to elevate and modernize the customer experience, a focus on the quality and value of our food and redefined convenience through delivery, we have a bold vision for the future and the urgency to act on it,” said Easterbrook. “We are moving with velocity to drive profitable growth and becoming an even better McDonald’s serving more customers delicious food each day around the world.”
Those in charge know they must make changes:
“We have to attract more customers, more often,’’ says Lucy Brady, the company’s senior vice-president for corporate strategy and business development. “We’ve lost hundreds of millions of visits from our core customers – students, teachers, construction workers’’ and others.
In Chicago, executives stated it wants to remodel restaurants to feature models “that includes kiosk ordering and Bluetooth-enabled table service.” The company hopes to remodel 650 restaurants across the country to have this technology, bringing the total number to 2,400 out of its 14,000 restaurants.
Kiosks have taken off in fast food restaurants as a way to lower costs. Wendy’s started using kiosks last year and announced last week that the company will install kiosks in 1,000 restaurants.
McDonald’s already started experimenting with kiosks in restaurants last year. Professor Jacobson saw the kiosks last June at the McDonald’s in Amsterdam. They’ve also discussed allowing patrons to order food through the app and will experiment with curbside check-in.
In Florida, the company has already begun testing delivery service with UberEats. McDonald’s already enjoys a massive delivery service in Asia.
The company will also try to reign in new and old customers with a new menu:
[McDonald’s USA President Chris] Kempczinski disclosed that McDonald’s test of its “Signature Sandwiches” — customizable and more upscale burgers and chicken sandwiches — will roll out later this year and investors can expect the company to step up its menu innovations in the U.S.
Last year, McDonald’s rolled out an all day breakfast menu. It recently debuted two new sizes of its famous Big Mac sandwich.
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Per friends in the fast food restaurant business, their biggest challenge is finding reliable employees. Kiosk ordering will solve part of that problem. Robotic preparation of food orders will help solve most of the rest of the problem.
But McDonalds is taking jobs away from illegal immigrants! Oh, my!
Whataburger is currently setting up mobile ordering to roll out later this year. You’ll be able to order and pay with your phone and just pick up at the window.
They got the idea from Starbucks, whose mobile ordering app has been a gold mine.
You mean you can order food at your table by way of a machine… like you could back in the 60’s? Progress!
Still, I so want my iPhone linked to the McDonalds app, because I’m lazy. The ability to voice order and pay in one motion and only pick up physically could save a lot of angst.
“Siri, McDonalds order. I need a breakfast burrito, no sauce, and a large coke, pay for it, and let me know when I need to swing by the pickup window.”
McDonalds would do itself a great favor by going back to frying it’s fries in beef tallow, as it did years ago. Stop trying to appease the food nazis — they will never be satisfied. They might also try to understand why Burger King’s and Wendy’s burgers are much more palatable.
You’ve hit the hammer right on the ketchup packet. There was a story not long ago about a franchisee who decided to revert to beef tallow and other tried and true recipes that had been abandoned at the altar of political correctness. When people found out it was lines out the door. When Corporate found out he was told in no uncertain terms to knock it off. Shame.
As to the three size Big Macs (I must tell you that I am an aficionado of world renown on the subject) that the large one is, well, too large. It’s a sloppy mess and the proportions are all wrong. What they should and must do is enlarge the beef patties to match their competitors.
was just going to say that about the fries.
taste difference was pretty large.
I hate Square burgers, something not right
Kempczinski disclosed that McDonald’s test of its “Signature Sandwiches” — customizable and more upscale burgers and chicken sandwiches — will roll out later this year
They’re doubtless paying someone a lot of money for bad ideas.
“Upscale” and “McDonalds” just don’t belong in the same sentence.
“Fast.” “Cheap.” “Reliable” (I don’t want to go into a fast burger joint and be told that burgers aren’t on the menu at the moment, and all I can get is some gay-bar breakfast tofu).
Those are the words management should have tattooed on their foreheads. Anything else is just a synonym for “failure”.
Dear McDonalds – You and most other “fast food” places have two really big problems.
1. You aren’t FAST anymore. There was a time I could park my car, go into your store and be back with a bag of food large enough to feed a car full of hungry teens in the time that I now spend waiting at the drive through.
2. You aren’t CHEAP anymore. “Fast” food has always had two big attractions – fast and inexpensive. These days I can go to to any number or restaurants and for just a couple of dollars more than I’ll spend on a burger at McDonald’s sit at a table, have my food brought to me almost as quickly as I’ll receive it at McDonalds and eat off of a real plate instead of a piece of paper.
I really don’t much care about kiosks and more menu options. I want what you used to provide – FAST and CHEAP. Let me know when you get back to your roots.
Ray Kroc called it QSCV.
Quality: The product has to be tasty and consistent. It has to be made correctly every time.
Service: The service must be fast AND friendly. The order should be taken with a smile, filled as quickly as possible, and presented correctly. The customer should not even think he is having to wait.
Cleanliness: The store should be kept neat and tidy at all times. Tables need to be washed as soon as they are open. Restrooms need to be noticeably clean. Parking lots and the neighborhood at least 1 block in radius needs to be kept clear of McDonald’s cups, bags, and wrappers. General trash pickup is recommended, as well. The store should be kept in an area that is perpetually clean.
Value: The customer should leave felling he has gotten his money’s worth. Or better yet, a bargain.
This was the formula that built McDonald’s, and Kroc was a fanatic over it. He would have somewhat loud words with a franchise owner and manager if he found so much as a fry bag lying in the parking lot. It was this devotion that got him an unsecured loan at one of his early make-or-break points.
Nowadays McDonald’s seems more devoted to mollifying people who would never eat at their stores anyway, and as a result their most loyal customers are going elsewhere.
Find out who manufacturers these kiosks. Go through their training program for maintenance and repair. Have a career with a future.
You can’t fool the laws of economics any more than you can Mother Nature. If minimum wage laws make labor more expensive than machines, capitalists will shift toward machines. You cannot legislate prosperity!
Watch for California’s 15 dollar per hour tax on robots.
Great news. Both of my preferred fast food joints are automating. Wendy’s has been automating drink service for a while. Now both are going to make overall ordering a pleasure.
You can thank the progressives for this technological advance for without their business crippling $15/hour minimum wage demands this progress would never have been realized so quickly. And to think the money these corporations save in an effort to stay competitive and in business comes off the backs of those who will remain unemployed because of greed and their opinion that they are more valuable and worth $15/hr (when in reality they are worth far less than that) that what they really are.
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Don’t you love it when reality intrudes upon the absurd logic of the liberal mind exactly as predicted by everyone but those liberal minds.
As long as McDonalds remains rebidly anti-gun, we have nothing to talk about. Get on board with America and America will get on board with you.
We go into a McDonald’s very infrequently so may have missed something, however … the stores in this area are generally gun-friendly. We’ll have to pay more attention when we’re on the road.
Over the summer we were at a McDonald’s in Denmark (scandi food is both terrible and expensive) and they had 8 ordering kiosks and 4 people working in the store. 3 on food prep and one handing out food.
I told my wife that this was going to be stateside within a year because of the minimum wage agitators. Well, here we are. I can’t say I’m going to miss having some semi-literate nitwit screwing up my order.
My first job outside of working for Dad was when I was 13.
Now, I have my own business. I’d gladly pay $5.00 per hour for a kid to come sweep for me.
$15.00, no way.
Sorry kid.
Sweep it yourself, then, and consider your own time worth $5 an hour.
I’ve given up on them. I travel a LOT, on the road, McD’s used to be a regular stop. No more.
The food rarely tastes like it should, and when it does its still nowhere near as good as what I can get at ANY other fast food place (well, BK sucks almost as bad).
The service is TERRIBLE.