US sales for McDonald’s have been slower lately than they have been in the past, and the company has decided to trim down its menu to try to drum up some more business here, the Wall Street Journal reports.
By McDonalds Inc [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
In fact, the monthly earnings report posted on Dec 8 showed the worst US performance in 13 years.
The Chicago Tribune also noted the changes coming to the menu, saying the Oak Brook, Ill.-based restaurant giant will offer fewer versions of the Quarter Pounder, taking four current versions down to only one, eliminate all but one of the Premium Chicken sandwiches, and try to get a handle on that huge drink menu, which corporate executives have said often makes it more difficult to order.
Editorial
I’ve eaten at the McDonald’s restaurant across the parking lot from the corporate headquarters in Oak Brook. That’s one good dining experience. My problem with McDonald’s, all corporate research to the contrary, has not been the menu but the people.
If everyone who worked at a McDonald’s were as nice as the people who work in the company’s Oak Brook restaurant, I would be glad to have a menu of as many items as possible, including healthy fruits and vegetables, and I wouldn’t mind waiting for the food items to be prepared properly.
Of course, that’s not how McDonald’s operates. The company, according to this latest move—The McWrap, in particular, “has been flagged as an item that often takes too long to prepare,” the Tribune said in today’s print edition—is more concerned with how long customers wait for food than it is with the customer experience in its restaurants.
That might not be the real problem, I’m thinking.
Within the last year, I have sought the consistency of the McDonald’s menu in three different states. Here are my worst experiences:
- A man wearing a manager’s shirt and name tag failed to make eye contact with me when he gave me my change. Unfortunately, he also failed to look at my outstretched hand and dumped my 44 cents on the counter for me to pick up. He didn’t even say the flippant, sorry about that.
- Women who were serving as cashiers or front-line customer-service reps have shouted out something like, “It’s my pleasure to serve the next customer in line.” That would be me. I’m the only one in the store, and they talk about me in the third person while looking me straight in the eye.
This is a sign of zero customer service training. Zero customer service skills. And zero impetus for me to revisit that restaurant. Not when I have so many other choices for a burger. I have always liked the Big Mac, but it’s just too difficult for me to set foot in a restaurant where I’m not going to be treated like a person but as the “next in line.”
Wake up, McDonald’s. You had a great thing going, and your emphasis away from customer service has lost all those kids you got when they were young. And now they don’t take their kids to your restaurant because your unlimited-refill soda makes them fat.
Conduct a survey of students in your school about their favorite places to eat and why they like those places? See Common Core high school statistics standard HSS.IC.B.4 for more information.