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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 bobthecimmerian on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:30PM
Relying on the person at the counter leads to a wildly inconsistent experience. Sometimes you have a veteran that can whip through my kids' insanely complex customized requests as fast as they each speak. But sometimes you have to repeat yourself four times and then when you get the printed receipt you have to go back to the counter to have them correct a few entries. So in that respect, when I first saw a fast food place with a kiosk I went straight to the kiosk.
But if you customize your orders, using the kiosk only makes sense if you visit the same restaurant all of the time. I started entering the options for our family and three minutes in I gave up. They had everything we wanted and there were no problems with the input, but navigating all the menus to remove mustard and add onions and so forth got old in a hurry.
I'm trying to teach my kids two lessons. It's not working. Lesson one: don't eat fast food. Lesson two: do yourself, the rest of your family, and the people behind us in line a favor and pick a meal that you can eat without customization. I usually walk up to the front counter and say something like "I'll take combo three with bottled water to drink."