According to BNN, McDonalds is unveiling state of the art kiosks as an alternative to placing your order at the front counter. You will be able to order, pay, and have your food delivered to you all at the push of a touch-screen. One big perk of these kiosks are the customizing ability to create your own burger. CEO John Betts hopes this will help boost sales, referencing the 15 cent increase with the custom burgers, and the convenience. He believes that with more time to order, and strictly paying with credit/debit cards, people will pay more to eat at McDonalds. Betts also hopes to bring more people through the restaurant at lunch and dinner, due to the decline of customers at those particular times.
picture from: www.meridianbooster.com
This article reminds me of the lecture we had in class from Mahesh Nagarajan about operations. McDonalds is trying to become more direct to their customers, by empowering them with the ability to create their burger to perfection. Personally, I think this is a very good idea to add customer loyalty, but may or may not work as Betts intends. With increased prices, people will either not want to go there for lunch and dinner, or be more willing to eat McDonalds for dinner and treat it like an actual restaurant; however, McDonalds has been known as a quick, easy, and cheap meal for so long, they will have a hard time trying to break that image. With this in mind, I don’t see people treating McDonalds as a destination to sit down and eat dinner with their family on a Friday night.