Re:You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
by notreallyserio on Sunday December 26, 2021 @10:25AM
(#29693093)
They probably did the math: they don't need the order taking machine to take less time than making the meal itself. If they made it so you could place an order in 1 second you'd still be in their store for a while. "Might as well bombard them with ads!"
Re:You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
by DarylZero on Sunday December 26, 2021 @10:59AM
(#29693443)
They can even do A-B testing on the ads. Even if they lose some customers in line they can know they make more sales to compensate. Also they only really care about the 10% of customers who are totally addicted to the product and buy 90% of it. Those ones aren't leaving the line.
Re:You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
by throwawayboise on Sunday December 26, 2021 @02:57PM
(#29695755)
Who uses those ridiculous kiosks? Most people I see still just go to the counter, order, and pay. It's much faster.
Re:You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
by Macha on Sunday December 26, 2021 @03:03PM
(#29695799)
Don't know what mcdonalds you're in, but most of them combine the kiosk revamp with cuts to the amount of staff hours. It's definitely not faster to join the single line in 5th place than use one of the 3 (of 5) vacant kiosks.
Re:You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
by throwawayboise on Sunday December 26, 2021 @06:13PM
(#29697298)
And they wonder why sales are declining
Re:You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
by Macha on Sunday December 26, 2021 @07:37PM
(#29697797)
Ah, but the KPI the execs are measuring for the kiosks is probably "self serve orders" so the more awkward they make the alternatives the better the numbers look
Re:You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?
by MichaelBurge on Sunday December 26, 2021 @03:21PM
(#29695940)
The McDonald's nearby doesn't allow counter orders anymore. You can only order through the kiosk, or using the phone app.
Both of them have numerous problems, and it's more time-efficient to order Uber Eats. But that has massive added fees.
I considered signing up to be an Uber Eats driver and filtering for anyone within 1 meter of me so I could pick up my own orders and save time(Uber's app is better), but there's not enough precision to do that.
So I ditched McDonald's and mostly drink Soylent nowadays.
And they've only added (most of) these recently. What they've done for me is is increased the time it takes to check out by at least a third. They're paying for the ads with lengthened lines, which is a little shocking when talking about the automated option, because customers choose the automated option to save time.
It might be a bad expectation for us to have. McDonalds might find it more profitable to start ripping out seats (especially with covid), and adding more automated checkout stations. Have us spend 5-10 minutes ordering. Offer discounts if we spend 10 additional minutes ordering and watching ads. Enter us into a sweepstakes while we order that pays every half-hour in free food.
You could cram a lot of 2-sided touchscreen stations in the footprint of a McDonalds; people standing everywhere like a pachinko parlor, or a storefront full of video poker machines.