I approach the register of the Mc Donald’s during a late afternoon rush and with some anticipation I proceed to order a cheese burger with four pickles and fries unsalted. Time seems to stand still when I order this special burger; in actuality it was no more than 30 seconds. The cashier requests me to repeat the order, which I did. She looks at me with a blank stare, stutters and recaps my order. The cashier seems to hestitate in ringing up the order and once again asks me to repeat my order. After retaking my order she calls over a supervisor and they spoke quickly in whispers. The supervisor comes over to the resigerter looks at me with a glare and proceeds to punch through my order. When I review my receipt I saw that the extra pickles were omitted from the order. I inform the cashier that I need the extra pickles to show on my receipt. She looks at me incredulously and calls the same supervisor again. At this point my order has taken over 8 minutes. The supervisor begins to put my order through, then stops, leaves the register and proceeds to the back. She emerges with another employee, who from my assumptions was a junior employee. Once again they whisper their conversation while ever so often looking at me, the junior employee punches in my order and leaves. The supervisor grabs the printed receipt and puts it on the counter in front of me. The cashier shouts “next customer please!” and I’m usher off rudely after waiting for 11 minutes.
The actual management process was demonstrated nicely. From an internal prospective it was evidence that there was clear organization, planning and control over the environment .However; the process management for special orders was done poorly. The supervisor lacked the skills necessary in meeting the customer requirement. There was little application of knowledge and use of the systems- this is evident in the fact that three people needed to be involved in the ordering process. The actually order preparation was efficiently done. My burger was already prepared and ready for my consumption within a reasonable time. What prolonged the transaction was the fact they could not input the order into their system. While coordination and communication was displayed effectively amongst the supervisor and the other workers, lack of communication with the customer was clearly evident. I was not informed what the problem was; no explanation or apologies were given to me. I was left to make my own assumptions. The lack of control over the process not only cost time but it affected the customer service ability of the cashier and supervisor.
As a consultant of Mc Donald’s, I would recommend a development of a protocol to address special orders. It would include both an operation process and customer service guidelines to address these special situations. While the present ordering processes addresses most customer’s need, the lack of control, coordination and poor Customer service when processing a special order can effect the overall perception of Mc Donald’s. The ordering process should be analyzed, with effort placed on defining and measuring goals to improve the overall efficiency of the process, while achieving customer’s request profitably.
