I recently went inside a McDonald’s to eat. And omg it was like a free for all. There’s no organized line anymore, people just stand around and you have to to figure out who’s waiting for an order or waiting to order. They do have touchscreens to order from but if the place is busy it’s like Walmart on Black Friday. We managed to place our order, but then it took 20 minutes after sitting down to get our meal. I always thought McDonald’s was the epitome of fast, efficient, cheap fast food. Place order, pay,receive food, eat, and regret your decision in a couple hours.
I’m 42 years old, have I reached the “back in my day” stage of life, or is McDonald’s getting worse?
It can be both, you know. 
I don’t care care for the kiosks as they still require one to go to the register if paying cash (which I usually do).
Next thing they’ll want us to cook the sandwiches ourselves, lol ok I’m started to sound like my old man now.
Yes and it’s awful. I took my kid because kids love freakin McDonalds and if given a choice that’s what mine always picks. I generally don’t eat the food anymore because every single time I regret it. I’m not a food snob. I will eat fast food anywhere else, although i feel about the same about Krystle. But I will sometimes get a sundae.
I’ve already experienced the kiosk set up. I don’t like that either, because it’s a hassle to do a special order, which I have to do for my kid as they don’t want anything but meat, cheese, and lettuce. No problem if you order it at the register but it’s just another hassle with the kiosks. And then I had to go over and pay at the cashier anyway because she had a freebie coupon for doing good in school. It took twice as long to order this way.
But that wasn’t even the problem. It was the wait. McD’s is a sensory nightmare for me already with the constant beeping on every piece of equipment, but I kept noticing they were serving people picking up app orders and the Grub hub and Uber Eats drivers were getting their orders ahead of us. I just think if someone comes in your restaurant shouldn’t they be served first? But no, I guess they want to maybe phase out dine-in? I don’t know what’s going on there but it was a miserable experience only to find of course they put mustard and pickle and onion on my kid’s burger, so we had to wait again.
I haven’t been to McDonald’s in ages. The last time I was there, there were a bunch of people just standing around (I presume that they were waiting for their orders to come up), but they were standing in the way of the people who wanted to use the kiosks. A lot of people were using the kiosks (when they could get through the crowd), using either debit or credit; but there were some who placed orders through the kiosk but wanted to pay cash, and were confused by how to do that. There appeared to be nobody staffing the “human calls order to another human, then pays cash” counter, except for employees who would occasionally appear with a tray or bag bearing food, and who were hollering, “Number 53! Number fifty-three!” before leaving the food on the counter and disappearing into the back.
I left, and went to Subway for lunch instead. I do like Big Macs, but I doubted I would get one in that mess.
I hope someone from McDonald’s corporate reads this thread, and realizes that the Speedee-Service system that McDonald’s invented years ago, worked extremely well. A limited menu, and everything served up at the counter within a minute of your ordering it. And no fancy coffee drinks–seriously, is McDonald’s a fancy-dancy coffee place or a fast-food burger joint? If McDonald’s wants to spin off McCafes into standalone coffee places that compete with Starbucks, fine; but I’m sure as heck not ordering a latte with a hint of cinnamon when I order a Big Mac and fries.
I like the kiosks and haven’t had any issue with them at all.
I tap in what I want. add a table address, pay using contactless phone and then go and sit down. A few minutes later it is brought to my table.
Seems like a no-brainer to me. Same goes for self-service in the supermarket ( I prefer the scan-as-you-shop) and pay-at-the-pump for fuel, they all work seamlessly for me.
I guess the thinking is that if everyone with a standard order uses the kiosks then it frees up the counter-staff to deal with customisations. Of course if you are one of those people requiring customisations you will always be stuck with extra work and dependent on the efficiency of the counter staff.
One thing that may help would be having the kiosks recognise you as “you” before ordering (by fingerprint or phone perhaps?) and then it could keep a record of your common orders and customisations so they would be ready to apply during your ordering process.
My local McDonald’s seems to have, by a mysterious process of osmosis, managed to sort out the whole kiosk situation. To wit, everyone ignores the kiosks and just goes right up to the counter to order, just like always. And the counter staff seem perfectly content with this, and never redirect people to the kiosks.
Really, they might as well have not even bothered with the expense of installing the kiosks. No one uses them.
I have no issue with the kiosk as it allows me to pay with a credit card: I’m from the era when no fast food places took credit cards so fast food counters and drive thrus are the one place where I still use cash by default.
I also go to McDonalds moreso than during the pre-kiosk era as it largely coincides with the all-day breakfast era, and I don’t order from their regular menu due to the hassle of specially-ordering your meal even at the counter, which I don’t have to do for breakfast food.
I haven’t had issues.
On top of all that, their prices are getting ridiculous considering the kind of food they are serving. I do McDonald’s/Burger King maybe once a month, and I usually regret even that.
It’s been several months but the first time I encountered the kiosks I mostly just wondered “why?”. I hadn’t even known they had them as I usually use the drive thru, but that line was too long so I figured I’d just order at the counter.
I get what the OP is saying; it was chaotic. Some people lined up at the counter, some loitering around the kiosks, presumably waiting for their orders. I wasn’t sure which method I should use so I approached the kiosk. I’m not *completely *useless but I did need to take a second to read the instructions on the screen. The helpful employee who was wondering around looking for folks who need help with these high falutin machines must have thought I was lost because she came over and started to take over.“What do you want, honey?”. Ummmmm, am I not *allowed *to order myself? I really did think that for a second. She left me to it, and while it wasn’t difficult by any means, it sure seemed more of a pain than simply telling my order to someone at the register. Then, as luck would have it, there was a malfunction and I couldn’t get a receipt / order number, so helpful employee had to void my order and rekey it after all :smack:
I imagine if one ate there regularly it would be routine but the first time felt very disorganized to me.
It’s been several months but the first time I encountered the kiosks I mostly just wondered “why?”. I hadn’t even known they had them as I usually use the drive thru, but that line was too long so I figured I’d just order at the counter.
I get what the OP is saying; it was chaotic. Some people lined up at the counter, some loitering around the kiosks, presumably waiting for their orders. I wasn’t sure which method I should use so I approached the kiosk. I’m not *completely *useless but I did need to take a second to read the instructions on the screen. The helpful employee who was wondering around looking for folks who need help with these high falutin machines must have thought I was lost because she came over and started to take over.“What do you want, honey?”. Ummmmm, am I not *allowed *to order myself? I really did think that for a second. She left me to it, and while it was difficult, it sure seemed more of a pain than simply telling someone at the register. Then, as luck would have it, there was a malfunction and I couldn’t get a receipt / order number, so helpful employee had to void my order and rekay it after all :smack:
I imagine if one ate there regularly it would be routine but the first time felt very disorganized to me.
I had a similar experience: I was going about my business mashing keys on the kiosk when an employee came up and stood by me. I stopped doing my thing because I thought he was going to tell me something about the kiosk, and then he asked if I needed help because I wasn’t doing anything. I asked if the kiosk was broken (with a strong implication of if it isn’t, then why ask if I needed help?) and then waited until he left to continue with my order. And then the machine didn’t take my credit card so I had to pay up front anyway.
I attempted to get a soda for my husband, unfortunately it was during the breakfast rush. The particular McD’s where I stopped was a fiasco! There were at least 10 cars in drive-thru (should have been my first clue) and when I went inside, there were people milling all over the place. No one was at the cash register to take orders. The person in front of me gave up and left, and after being told twice “Someone will be right with you”, I also left. In those minutes, the line for drive-thru was even longer.
If I never go to a McD’s again, I can live out my life contentedly.
Well, the answer to this question is always the same. It’s ‘money’.
The kiosks have one-time installation costs. But they replace the order-takers and customer service reps and allow the store to cut human costs on their budgets.
Make of that what you will. I guarantee you that McDonald’s didn’t install those kiosks - I concur in my experience that they confuse the order/pickup process - to improve the customer experience.
The kiosk works perfectly fine for me, and is far superior for customization. My wife always wants a Big Mac with extra sauce, and I select Big Mac, hit “Customize” then the plus beside “Sauce.” Easy. Heck, there are things you can do on the breakfast menu that are virtually impossible with the average counter help. For instance, a friend of mine eats primal and wanted to get the eggs they use on Egg McMuffins. They’re hidden there somewhere on their register as “round eggs”, but it’s incredibly easy to call up on the kiosk. My friend spent an hour trying to get round eggs at one McDonald’s, while he could get it in seconds at the kiosk.
Sounds like hell to me. Good thing I don’t like McD’s and haven’t been in years (decade+?). 
I find it interesting to anticipate the future. In the short run, I anticipate encountering more and more things I simply decide I just don’t wish to do, as I find the phone/kiosk/person-less interface inconvenient and unpleasant. Phones, apps, and such are VERY convenient for people who use there phones a lot. For folk like me, who use my phone primarily to make and receive phone calls and texts, they are a hassle, as I need to learn/re-learn how to do it on the rare instances I need to.
Nearly everything that is being promoted as a convenience, I find increases my IN convenience. Such as reserved seating for movies. Easier for me to just not go to theaters that offer that.
AT SOME POINT, things will have progressed to a point at which I will HAVE to rely on a phone/technology for so many things, that I will dive in. At that point, I’ll get a phone that will handle it, will learn how to do it, and will do it frequently enough to develop/maintain the skills. Until then, I’m happy to do without.
They finally reinstalled self serve at the local grocery after removing it a few years back. The new system is OK - preferable, actually, to the LONG lines at the surly cashiers! Yesterday I actually got through it w/o being told to “Remove item from bagging area!” 
No interest in the scan-as-you-go, tho my sister says she saves a few buck doing that.
And yeah - I pay at the pump (but w/ a credit card). What do you think I am, some kind of Neanderthal? 
This. The McDonalds by me has a few kiosks that I am not sure I’ve ever seen anyone use. Everyone just waits in a line by the counter like they always did.
With McD’s being a franchise operation, I’m sure this varies by location. My local one still has people lining up in a semi-orderly fashion, takes cash or credit at the register, etc.
I’ve only used the kiosks a couple times but, each time, I was the only one using them and it allowed me to jump several places in line so I’m in favor of them.
I’m pretty sure that if McDonald’s could automate the entire process they would. I imagine it will happen before too long.