Tuesday, June 6, 2006

 

Outsourcing the drive-through

`The outsourcing revolution has come to an unlikely place: the drive-through window at your local McDonald’s quick-service restuarant (that’s “fast food joint” in English). No longer just a way for companies to cut costs on their helpline or offer inexpensive tutoring over the Web, outsourcing is now seen as way to make the drive-through experience more efficient, which translates into more cheeseburgers sold. [..]

The system is currently a trial project that serves 40 McDonald’s in the US (including Hawaii). When a customer rolls up to the order board, their conversation is actually routed across the Internet to someone working in a California call center. Call center employees are specifically trained to be fast, polite, and to upsell—or, as Joseph Fleischer of Call Center Magazine describes it, “advising the customer on getting more out of the product.” The employee then enters the order into a computer, which routes it back over the Internet to the local McDonald’s, which assembles the requested items.’




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