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Gone are the heady days of cashiers asking if you want your order "supersized."
Not only has the infamous upgrade gone by the wayside, but cashiers at fast-food restaurants are becoming increasingly uncommon. McDonald's started rolling out ordering kiosks at its US locations in 2015, and the chain hasn't looked back since: by 2020, most of its 14,000 locations will have kiosks installed.
Panera Bread has also committed to digital ordering. Admittedly, when I first tried it in 2015, I found it had decidedly dystopian vibes. But it ended up being a fairly pleasant and painless experience.
A recent poll conducted by Business Insider's partner MSN suggests that diners aren't big fans of automated kiosks: 78% of customers said they would be less inclined to go to a restaurant that has automated ordering kiosks.
The popular narrative is that kiosks and mobile ordering are here to take jobs and hours away from underpaid cashiers, ultimately saving companies money in the face of rising labor costs — but the data suggests that isn't true. It may be true for some, but most chains are simply reallocating labor behind the scenes. And with such a tight labor market, many chains are struggling to hire and retain customer-facing employees.
Americans don't seem too threatened by automation in general. Nationally, only 21% of responders to MSN's poll believe their job may one day be done by machines. And restaurants like automated ordering for its increased accuracy and efficiency as more chains look towards cashless options.
But for now, a question remains: are kiosks, in fact, better for customers?
Source: Business Insider
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:55PM (3 children)
Our McDonalds uses a robot to make sodas. There's no self-serve. I enter what I want in the app, and inside the store, the right size cup drops, a conveyor device rotates the cup to the ice (if desired), drops the ice, then to the right nozzle, the cup is filled, and the employee has the monumental task of slapping a lid on it and putting a straw into the bag.
As far as I'm concerned, they're on exactly the right track.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 01 2018, @02:29AM (2 children)
The meme around here in the 1980s was that the cup cost more than the soda, so why not let the customers bloat themselves on sugar water as much as they want when they pay $1.49 for a $0.10 cup, straw and lid? By the 1990s, self-serve soda was pervasive. The few customers who drank large amounts of syrup were completely offset by the reduction in labor cost of having the customers serve themselves. Customer satisfaction also increased quite a bit: free refills when you want them.
Now, there's the drive-thru beverage situation, and when I worked fast food we had a fair number of customers (maybe 2% of the drive-thru traffic) who would order drinks only - seemed pretty insane to me to pay $1.50 for a cup and straw with ice and soda in it when chilled 12oz cans were selling for $0.50 from machines, or $0.25 from the grocery, but... there were regulars who did drive through for drinks only.
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(Score: 2) by toddestan on Monday April 02 2018, @02:16AM (1 child)
I guess it makes some sense to get your drink that way. The price isn't all that different from a beverage from a convenience store that has fountains, and you don't even have to leave your car.
Also, I haven't seen 12oz cans in machine for $0.50 for a long time now. If you find a machine that sells cans, the going price is $1. Most machines now sell 20oz bottles for $1.50.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 02 2018, @03:24AM
Last time I worked fast food was 1985... soda prices have done weird things since then, they're up ~2x in machines and grocery stores, but not as much in restaurants.
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