MCccccDonalds.... you rock

About five years ago, before coming to United States, I had only been to McDonald’s once in my whole life, so it kind of seemed something luxurious. But since I came to US, I find McDonald in about every neighborhood, so it has lost that place in my way of thinking. About any restaurant, I don’t really matter to me how fast or slow they fulfill my order, as long as the food is what I expect it to be. So when I usually go to McDonald’s I’m am pretty sure the sort of service I will get. Up until today, I haven’t paid whole a lot of attention to the process the management goes through as they fulfill my order. Today was one of the times when I actually tried to dig deep into the managerial process involved in fulfilling my order.
First, giving my order to the cashier. As I walked up to the register, there was only one person in front of me; he was almost finished with receiving his order. There were total of three cashiers taking the orders from the customers. So I walked to one of them and told them what I needed, he seemed confused and asked me again, then his fellow cashier came along and tried to explain what I asked for, I am pretty sure the first person was on training. So the actual person who punched my order was the last cashier who was the manager at the time. Simply, there were three people involved in just getting my order. It may seem that it may have taken a while, but it was pretty quick.
Secondly, getting the order ready to take out. Simply, punching the number into computer can tell the chef what to make, but the cashier went to the chef and told him exactly what I asked for. First, he asked him for cheeseburger, then I corrected him that I actually needed hamburger, so he corrected the order to the chef. The inclusion of chef involves the total of four people into the process. And then the fries, I think they had just took out fresh fries from the oil, so they just gave it to me without any salt on them, so it was not a big deal for them to get me fries with no salt.
Now the total time it took for them to complete my order, seriously, it took them exactly three and half minutes to complete my order, which is pretty quick. Maybe because my timing was wrong, I went there at a time, when there were not too many customers in the restaurant. I went there at 8:35 PM, while my friends awaiting in the car.
There were no problems with the treatment I received while I was in the restaurant. Because the order was quite unique, I was expecting some sort of negative feedback from the server, but actually nothing of that sort actually happened. The server ensured that I received the right order with exactly the same topping I asked for, he used the term “exactly” when he told the chef what I needed to ensure accuracy. I really have to give them credit for that.
On the scale of 1 through 10, I would rate the order preparation to be 10, because it was prepared in timely and accurate manner. I would rate communication 8, because I did have to tell them several times, what I actually was asking for. I would give 9 to coordination, and 10 to customer service, because the server or the cashier did ensure several times that I received exactly what I asked for. As a consultant to McDonald’s to help them improve efficiency, I would definitely make some recommendations. Especially with communication, the server didn’t need to go the chef to ensure that I received accurate topping. He should have signaled some way on the computer to let the chef know that I wanted exactly that, that way time would have been saved and could have been used for better customer service, which was already great without question.
My experience today at McDonald’s has made my beliefs stronger about the servers at McDonald’s. I can definitely trust the restaurant servers for quality and accuracy. The McDonald’s Management team is doing a great job, as a team, and I’m proud of them.