Sure, but if, for example, a place normally just puts some ketchup into the bag when people order fries, and they change that process, then they either have to be very careful about asking people or you’re going to get some people who get home and are pissed that they didn’t get ketchup when they always used to.
Both of those are a cost, and often one that’s hard to measure. One of them slows down the drive through line (sure, just a little, but that stuff can add up and cause people driving by to go elsewhere), and the other one pisses off some customers who might become non-customers.
And of course, in store, you’re going to have people coming back up to the counter and interrupting the person trying to make an order because they need the thing.
True, but a change is different than how things are. That doesn’t make sense, let me try again. Yes, a change may disrupt status quo and cause issues, but you can’t compare Option A to the transition from A to B, you have to compare A to B. In this discussion, it’s not fair to compare automatically giving condiments or having them in a place where the customer can get them on their own to the annoyance of getting people used to the new way. You have to compare having them out to not having them out.
There’s very few things in large chain stores (restaurants or otherwise) that aren’t quantified. McDonalds, Taco Bell time how long it takes between an order being placed and the customer getting the order. It would be trivial for them to look at averages before, during and after a transition to see if there’s a difference and weigh that against the cost savings.
And given the fact that so much is quantified, I assume places like Taco Bell are okay with the amount of sauce that goes out the door. I’m sure TPTB are well aware of the 10:1 ratio of sauce to tacos.
It’s entirely possible that, given the price and them knowing people toss them in a drawer, they consider the excess advertising. Every time you open that drawer, you’re reminded of Taco Bell.
The thread is about when fast food places will make a change to charging for this stuff, so the fact that the transition has costs is relevant to that discussion.
If you were starting a new restaurant, you could (mostly*) ignore the transition costs. But an existing restaurant considering this as a cost-cutting measure should consider the transition costs, and might explain why things haven’t changed even if B is superior to A.
*only mostly because if you are sufficiently different than what customers expect from similar restaurants, you might have many of the same issues.
As long as people are buying enough big profit items like fries and sodas I can’t see them charging for napkins or ketchup any time soon. I find it amusing that when you ask for napkins or ketchup they give you a huge handfull when one or two was all I wanted.
You people must be going to the fancy suburban white people McDonald’s where they care about the corporate rules. If you go to the ghetto McDonald’s downtown, they’ll just hand you the entire box with the sauce cups in it, they don’t give a shit.
I’ve never seen any evidence for this, but my assumption has always been that Taco Bell does this knowing that many people keep those extra packets in a drawer and it becomes a form of cheap free advertising for them.
