Re:McDonald's and other chains are giving their drive-thrus ...
by grawprog on Sunday February 28, 2021 @12:41AM
(#26290975)
I dunno, years ago, i learned something that stuck. I worked in a grocery store, we stocked those 4L ice cream buckets, the year i took over the frozen food section, dairyland decided to remove the handles on their buckets...people lost their shit. Like honestly, i had old ladies flipping out at me screaming because those bucketed handles were the only reason why they bought that ice cream.
So one day, i asked the dairlyand rep why...he told me someone figured out they could save 1ยข per bucket by removing the handle...this added up to millions of dollars a year....
Yes decisions like this are made on the basis of mere cents that add up to millions...
I suspect that this is largely pretend savings. Since locations are pressured to game this metric, for any order that they think might take too much longer than the median drive-thru time, they will (1) send customers from the drive-thru line to a parking spot then (2) bring their food out 5-10 minutes later. This can easily double customer wait time, and the food is often noticeably worse for the delay. It's a terrible customer experience.