McDonald's Restaurant

I went to Michigan with my friends during spring break, so I bought this order in Michigan as well. I asked one of my friends to drive me to McDonald, and he was so surprised that I was missing McDonald’s food. Because that was the first time I went to Michigan, so I didn’t know where the McDonald’s restaurant is, but it wasn’t difficult to find and we saw the restaurant in about 10 minutes from driving. When we were in McDonald’s Restaurant, I asked my friend if he could order this for me because I was so embarrassed. I gave the printed assignment sheet to him and I told him to just ask the staff to give the food that is listed on the paper. When my friend asked the cashier if he could have that order, I heard the staff say “oh, that’s so weird, but I will do it for you anyway”. My friend and I were kind of embarrassed at that time. The cashier told the kitchen staff that she wanted 1 small hamburger with four pickles on it and 1 small order of French Fries with no salt; the kitchen staff repeated the order again, and the cashier said “yes, correct”. I heard the staff in the kitchen ask to the cashier, “are you sure you just want French Fries with no salt”? The cashier said “yes, please”. It took about 15minutes to complete this order. Three people got involved in completing this order. The three included the cashier who took the order, a kitchen staff, and a person who packed this order. They treated me nicely when I asked for this picky order. The cashier was smiling at me and my friend while we were waiting for the order. In addition, the order was completed correctly with four pickles on the hamburger and no salt in the French Fries. The workers were all friendly and well trained to do the task assigned but as a team there seemed to be no method in place to handle special orders. The company has surely made its mark on uniformity of style, cleanliness and taste but special orders seemed to bring the system to a halt. The three workers involved had to stop and communicate in new ways to get the order completed correctly. The order was correctly produced but it took a long time. Fifteen minutes is a long time to wait in McDonalds, fast food should be fast as well as tasty. The entire production of this order caused the line in this fast food place to slow way down and that can’t be good for business.
I think McDonald’s teaches their workers to be professional even when the customers make some difficult order with many restrictions. In my case, although the order seemed abnormal, they still made the order that I wanted. If we manage our work properly and treat the customers nicely, we always can bring back the customer, and this is very important in managing a business. The cashier who ordered my food was very professional, when my friend showed her the assignment sheet; she read it and asked my friend to confirm the order. After she placed the order on the computer, she rechecked the order with the paper that my friend have on hand. The way she treated us was very polite; she kept smiling as we ordering and continued smiling while we were waiting as well. Smiling is a good and wonderful aspect of the job training at McDonalds but the smile wears thin after several minutes of waiting for the now slow fast food. Perhaps in addition to the smile McDonalds needs to compensate the customer with some free item for enduring the long wait. After all, the hamburger should have been no problem at all only requiring the careful placement of four pickles. The no salt French fries must have been a difficult order to fill. I am sure that we have all seen the McDonalds workers liberally pouring salt on all the heating fries waiting to be sent out to the customers. I suppose that the facilities to produce this particular special order created some difficulties. McDonalds should consider a special work station to handle special orders. Today’s fast food market is rising in competition and McDonalds would do well to realize that special orders may pay an important part in their future business. McDonalds has been very successful over the years but times change and to continue to enjoy business success McDonalds should incorporate a new level of management training to accommodate special orders such as the one present in this assignment.
If I was bought in as a consultant to McDonald’s to help them improve their efficiency, I will recommend that McDonald’s should invite customers to ask for special orders. Because sometime the special order can be creative and the taste can be delicious too. In this way they can use the customers’ creatively as research and in this may bring more customers as well be a source of new product lines. There is another way to improve operations during special orders. McDonald’s can add a self service bar where customers can choose bread, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, etc. to make a hamburger or sandwich. Personally, I would be happier to choose items that I want for my order rather than choosing them from menu. In this way, I don’t have to tell McDonald’s staff what I want and what I don’t want for my order. There should be no exact price for special orders; the price should depend on the number of items that the customer adds to the orders. Maybe McDonalds could create a special menu of possible special order possibilities. Whatever McDonalds decides to do in the future, I believe that special, and orders are likely to be a growing part of their business.