McDonald’s Has A Plan To Make Sure What You Order At The Drive-Thru Is What You Get

You probably know the feeling: the little hunger monkeys in your stomach are pitching a fit,demanding to be fed, and you’re finally opening up the bag of food the drive-thru worker has handed you… and your order is wrong. The hunger monkeys fly into a rage and you’re forced to go back and ask the restaurant to make it right. McDonald’s is trying to make sure that doesn’t happen with a new plan to prevent orders from getting mucked up.

McDonald’s has already tried speeding up the drive-thru process by simplifying its menu, but since this summer it’s been working on a way to ensure that your cheeseburger doesn’t arrive cheeseless, or your crispy chicken sandwich finds itself grilled: the chain is trying to make outdoor ordering more personal, and in the meantime, more accurate, by pushing a new optional method called “ask, ask, tell” that provides three chances to check the order, reports Bloomberg.

The first ask happens when the drive-thru worker repeats the customer’s order back to them and asks if it’s correct. When the customer arrives at the window to pay, a worker again repeats the order and asks if everything is as it should be. The “tell” happens when the food changes hands from the worker to the customer, with another change — no more folded over paper bags, so the customer can look inside and see what’s there.

Will this potentially slow things down? Maybe, but it could be worth it for franchisees.

“You’re probably going to add a couple seconds, which I don’t think will be huge as long as you’re creating a friendly experience — and getting the order right,” one franchisee who owns three McDonald’s restaurants in New Jersey told Bloomberg. “Customers are getting the items that they want.”

Franchisees have also been asked to turn off the impersonal recorded greeting that some locations use, in favor of a personal “hello” from a live person. This is a nice change for everyone involved, the New Jersey franchisee notes, after he turned off the prerecorded message at the one location he owns that used it.

“It creates at least a little, quick dialog that they both enjoy,” he said.

McDonald’s Knows You’re Sick of Screw-Ups at Drive-Thru Windows [Bloomberg]