THE GOLDEN ARCH

The order process began with the McDonald’s representative asking me “How may I help you?” I responded with my order of one hamburger with exactly four pickles and a small-unsalted fries. As I placed my order the McDonald’s representative began putting my order into the system and left her station to start frying a new batch of fries. Meanwhile, a trainee waits for the transaction to approve on my credit card. He gave me a copy of the receipt and yelled “NEXT CUSTOMER PLEASE STEP DOWN!” As I waited for my order to be completed, I observed that there were about 3-4 personals involved in completing my order. There were the casher who took my order and made a new batch of fries for me, the trainee who took my payment and gave me the receipt and probably two other personals in the back that were preparing my burger with four pickles. My order was completed in four minutes and one second (not including the mistake they had made). While I was ordering, the casher was very nice and patient with my order even though it was very specific. She was very informative as well; telling me that the fries will be ready in 2 minutes. Altogether, the service was efficient but not organized due to their mistake in making my burger with only three pickles instead of four.

From what I have observed and in a scale of 1 to 5: I would rate order preparation a 4, 3 for communications, 3 for coordination, and 5 for customer service. Overall, the service and efficiency of that McDonald branch did well. If a McDonald branch is able to complete an order in less than three minutes or less then they have successfully accomplished their goal guideline in serving its customers. Although this McDonalds completed their order in four minutes, the guideline is only in affect for normal orders, which suggests that their efficiency and coordination is good but can be improved.Some ways to improve the efficiency and coordination for this McDonald’s include training employees on specific orders more often instead of normal orders. McDonald employees who work the food section should be well prepared for certain changes to a normal menu item. For instance, if a customer wants an Angus deluxe without mayo and cheese, then they should be able to read the computer and identify the specific choices on the Angus burger. A way to prevent errors and human mistakes is that the casher can double check the specific orders, making sure that the order is completed without errors. Of course this extra task can be more time consuming since the casher have to focus on this task instead of the next customer. I believe in the end this type of approach to resolving erroneous orders will pay off in the end because there will be more customer satisfaction and royalty.