So I pull up to a drive-thru today, the restaurant brand name of which will become clear in the following paragraph. However, the meat of this rant applies to most drive-thrus.
So I pull up to the order mike, mentally preparing what I’m gonna tell the cashier. In order for the order to go smoothly, it has to be said exactly like this:
Hello, I’d like a Number twoOriginalwithmashedpotatoes and potato wedges.
If I don’t say it exactly like that, the conversation will go something like this:
“Hello, I’d like a Number Two, Orig…”
“Original or Crispy?”
“Original. With mashe…”
“With mashed potatoes and cole slaw?”
“Mashed potatoes and potato wedges.”
(And don’t get me started on the alchemy I’ve tried to attempt to specify that I DONT want a drink before they ask me. I’ve given up on that battle already.)
But that’s not the point of my rant :). So when I pull up, I hear a voice say “May I take your order please?”
Now, I’ve worked at fast food, and it is annoying to repeat that phrase over and over. In addition you might want to pre-program a voice to announce a current special which the grunts might forget. But, if you’re going to have a voice-over asking me for my order rather than a human being, can it hurt you to only start the recording when there is actually someone there ready to take my order?. Thank you.
What Ludovic is bitching about are the fast food places which have hit upon the “bright idea” of having a recording say, “May I take your order, please?” So you start to give your order, thinking that there’s actually a human being there, listening to you, only to hear, when you finish, someone with an entirely different voice (and the sound quality’s totally different, so you realize instantly you’re speaking to a human and not the recording you heard before you gave your order), "May I take your order, please?
Drive-thru jockey: “Welcome to KFC, May I take your order?”
My girlfriend: “Yes, I’d like a three peice chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy, and coleslaw, with Dr Pepper to drink, and also a chicken liver dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy, and coleslaw, and also Dr Pepper to drink”
DTJ: Would you like the three-peice original or extra crispy?"
GF: Um…crispy.
DTJ: Okay…and what side items would you like with that?
GF: Um…mashed potatoes with gravy and coleslaw?
DTJ: And to drink?
GF: …Dr Pepper
DTJ: Okay, will that be all for you?
GF: No…no…I wanted a chicken liver dinner, too…
DTJ: Okay and what would you like with that?
(You can pretty much figure out the rest of the conversation.)
I’ve been getting that lately at a local Popeye’s. Since I always get the same thing, I like to think I have the order process down pretty well. So it goes like this:
“May I take your order?”
“I’d like a number 5, spicy, with fries and a lemonade.”
“Spicy or mild?”
Sigh. “Spicy.”
“Would you like a side order?”
“Fries, please.”
“Would you like a drink with that?”
“Lemonade.”
“Would you like to add apple pie or banana pudding?”
“No.”
“Pull around please.”
If I had wanted a pie or banana pudding (by the way, eww!), I would have asked for it, you brainless invertebrate.
I would love to hear “May I take your order?” Instead, I pull up to the drive-through, and the person says, “Welcome to _____, would you like to try our _____?”
Wouldn’t it be a lot quicker if I just told them what I want, instead of waiting for them to guess?
Yea, the first time this happened to me I was quite confused. I heard the voice say something like , “Welcome to Snarf’n’Barf, Home of the Booger, May I Take Your Order?” and proceded to give my order. A few seconds later, I heard a completely different voice ask me if I wanted anything with whatever the last thing I said. I sat there for a couple of seconds just going “ummmm … what?” before I figured out what was going on.
Since then, I’ve taken to completely ignoring whatever the recording says, because much of the time it’s something like “I’m ready to take your order RIGHT NOW This Very Instant Don’t Delay Start Speaking Hurry Hurry Hurry” to be followed up by your typical minimum wage worker going “Uhh hold on a minute I’m not ready”. So regardless of what the recording says, I immediately answer it with something like “Hello, are you ready to take my order?” I get responses anywhere from an openly annoyed “Hold on a minute I’m not ready” to an openly annoyed “Yes, dammit, give me your stupid order already”. Gaaaah.
Of course, not listening in the first place to your order is their fault, but they HAVE to ask you if you want “such and such” or they get fired and replaced with another drone who makes less money.
Way back in the day when I was a trainer at McDonalds, having to do this stuff used to drive me crazy. I knew it annoyed customers and it wasn’t like every 2nd or 3rd time we’d get someone saying “Yeah, I was going to just get a water but since you mentioned the number 87 combo meal, I’ll take that!” People stand back from the counter or idle near the drive-thru sign and then move forward when they decide what they want. You aren’t likely to do anything but waste time by suggesting something to them after they’ve already indicated they know what they want.
So, when training new hites I would explain (out of management earshot) that there were two different ways to do this. The ‘correct’ way (to be used whenever a manager was present) and ‘my’ way (to be used when there wasn’t a manager around and you didnt feel like annoying the person you were talking to).
Probably not the smartest thing in the world to do, but darn it, sometimes you have to take a stand for whats right… and all that…
Unfortunately, given the next part of your post, I don’t think you have their process down particularly well. Here’s the trick to remember:
These are unmotivated, minumum wage teenagers (often) who listen to about 1,000 orders during their shift, they are not going to remember your order if you blurt it out all at once. What they have instead is a fairly simple process where you make a selection, such as a “Number 5” and they enter it, with the computer telling them what to ask about next, like Drink type, spicy/not spicy, side order type, etc. They are not going to allow you to order a Number 5 without getting all of the necessary details, so there’s no reason to try to hurry it, just go with the flow.
I’m sort of surprised that people expect them to remember a big order like xgxlx’s, that’s got ten individual items to key in, and you expect them to remember all that from a single hastily spoken statement? Would you do that to a waitress standing in front of you? These people are trying to take your order and get it right, calm down, slow down, and let them.
Fair enough. I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective, since I’ve never worked in the fast food industry. I’ll try that next time and see what happens (although the next time might be a while, since I got horrendous heartburn last time I ate Popeye’s).
