Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Brian Lutz
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Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by Brian Lutz »

While out to lunch today I found out that the McDonald's near my office has just installed some of the be ordering kiosks that they are rolling out. I used it to order lunch, and here are some impressions:

The speed and user interface need work: ordering a combo off the menu required navigating though several different screens (burgers/ select the burger type / select a combo or just the burger / select a drink for a combo (completely unnecessary outside of the drive thru) add to menu or customize / repeat the process for the next item.) On top of all the pages to navigate though, there was a 1-2 second delay between pages, which significantly slows down the whole operation.

After entering your order, you have the option to either pay with card at the kiosk or pay at the counter. Of course, by the time you do that you might as well just order at the counter. When you pay you take a numbered table tent, which is then used to deliver your order to your table. At the time i ordered there was someone manning the kiosks, presumably to explain them to the customers.
Drink cups were kept next to the kiosk, but there was little enforcement of which cup you take, and the "any size same price" promo made it a moot point anyway.

All in all, the experience still leaves a lot to be desired. In the end I was able to make my order without much trouble, but it took at least twice as long as it would have to order at the counter. In sure they will improve on this, but I doubt it will ever completely replace a person at the counter.
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by klkla »

Jack in the Box used to have them. I liked it. You could order and pay as soon as you walk in and then the only thing you had to wait for was your order. It saved a lot of time. I'm not sure why they removed them.
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by storewanderer »

The Jack in the Box kiosks interfaced a lot faster than the McDonalds ones interface. Carl's Jr. also had some kiosks that were identical to the Jack in the Box ones.

The Jack in the Box at the San Diego Airport has a self ordering position that was installed early this year. I say this because it seems to be a cash register that is faced to turn the customer with an attached pinpad to run card sales. That Jack in the Box is run by SSP America and does not use the standard point of sale system that most locations use so I am not sure if that kiosk is a Jack in the Box idea or a SSP America idea.

I am surprised McDonalds has not worked out the speed/interface of the kiosks given how widely they are rolling them out.
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by Brian Lutz »

My guess is that the hardware being used to run the kiosks is underpowered for the task at hand (designed more to be as cheap as possible than with usability in mind.) It seems a lot of the restaurants I've been to that have reasonably good kiosk experiences (Panera Bread's kiosks seem to work well) base theirs on iPads, while the McDonald's ones have large (probably around 50" vertically oriented) touchscreens. My guess is that the software is being developed in-house with non-technical people running the department,whereas some of the other ones are being farmed out to companies that have more specialized experience with this type of thing. Something like an iPad is also a lot easier to get to perform well than something like a web interface (which I'm guessing the McDs kiosks are using.)

All this is just speculation of course, but in my experience it isn't always a good thing for a company to try to something like this on their own. They will probably improve things over time, but they have a lot of work to do.
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by wnetmacman »

I used one of the kiosks in Branson, MO almost a year ago. I found it pretty easy to run, with large graphics and a touch screen. Ordering was quite simple, and my order was correct when it came out, unlike when I use a manned cash register.

That all being said, I'm a Network Engineer, so things I find easy may not be for others....
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by BillyGr »

Brian Lutz wrote:The speed and user interface need work: ordering a combo off the menu required navigating though several different screens (burgers/ select the burger type / select a combo or just the burger / select a drink for a combo (completely unnecessary outside of the drive thru) add to menu or customize / repeat the process for the next item.) On top of all the pages to navigate though, there was a 1-2 second delay between pages, which significantly slows down the whole operation.
Sounds like they may just have one setup that they are using for all locations with that drink selector, since there are still stores that have the drink machines behind the counter (and would thus need to know what you wanted to fill it for you) - the ones I can think of locally are in areas where they want to keep more control so that things don't "walk off", so not sure they would have these kiosks, but possibly in the future?
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by Alpha8472 »

I visited a brand new McDonald's today and it had the kiosks. The menus were complicated and difficult to find what you wanted. It was confusing to figure out. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find what I wanted. It would have been faster to order at the counter.

I went back a second time to order more food and tried to use discount codes from the McDonald's app. It was impossible to figure out. There was an employee helping people use the kiosk, but there were clearly many bugs.

I gave up and left without ordering more food as I spent 10 minutes trying to get the discount through the kiosk. Many elderly people were frustrated with the machines and simply gave up. The kiosks need major improvements to make them more user friendly.

There were no self serve cups at this restaurant. You had to pick your drink on the kiosks and then get the cup at the counter. The drink machine was self serve, but lacked Hi-C. Also this restaurant did not bring the food to the table. They called out your order even though the kiosk tells you wait at a table for someone to bring you your food.
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by mjhale »

Perhaps McDonald's should have taken a field trip to Sheetz or Wawa where touch screen ordering has been in place for a long, long time. It works well and is easy to figure out what you want to order. I can tap in what I want to order at Sheetz or Wawa in less than a minute. Even at the busiest times these touch screen ordering systems keep up very well.

I presume that McDonald's is implementing the ordering kiosks to mitigate the increases in the minimum wage in various municipalities. If the kiosks are difficult to figure out and slow to use it is going to result in a decrease in business out of frustration from the process.
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by Brian Lutz »

I've heard that Hi-C is in the process of being phased out at McDonald's in favor of some sort of new Sprite flavor. When word of this got out there was a fair bit of negative reaction, so perhaps this is being delayed. So far the ones here still have it, but I don't know if they plan to change over soon.
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Re: Ordering kiosks at McDonald's

Post by storewanderer »

Hi-C has been covered up for the past couple weeks at the McDonald's locations I've been to.

I have never used a discount code from the McDonalds app on a kiosk in the US but when I tried to do it in Canada (same kiosk software and though not the same app the coupon generated looked the same) I could not make it happen and had to pay through a regular cashier once, but then the next time I tried, I did get it to work through the kiosk in Canada.

You can add Quik Trip to places with fast working and easy to understand kiosks. Lots of examples for McDonalds to go study. I think if they could just get the interface to speed up and work faster, it would do wonders.
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