Outsourcing is commonplace in some industries, such as high-tech and services. However, one industry that seems like an unlikely candidate for outsourcing is fast food. Yet, several chains such as Jack in the Box, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. are either experimenting with the idea or have implemented the idea in their drive-through windows.
These companies see many advantages to outsourcing such as improved speed and accuracy of order taking, in addition to freeing up restaurant employees to do other jobs such as take payments. Another major benefit of outsourcing for the industry has been the elimination of the language barrier that sometimes occurs between a native English speaking customer and a non-native English speaking employee. “According to Hudson Riehle, SVP of Research for the National Restaurant Association, remote order-taking can shave drive-through time by milliseconds, which can add up to millions for the fast food industry.”
So the next time you go through the drive-through at your favorite fast-food restaurant, be aware that you may be speaking with someone half-way across the globe.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
One of the things about these outsourcing options for simple tasks like order taking is how easy it would be to completely automate the process and remote labor from the question entirely. Why pipe the order half way around the world when a simple touch screen interface could replace everything and eliminate incorrect orders, which in my guess hold up the process more.
ReplyDeleteI've personally wondered why fast-food drive-throughs can't use a touch screen menu with images of the menu items. Other industries currently use this, such as in-bay automatic car washes, in which the entire transaction takes place with the customer interacting with a touchpad/screen.
ReplyDeleteI did some Googling but all I could really find on the subject was an article about a Subway implementing the first touchscreen drivethru kiosk almost three years ago. I wonder why something like this hasn't caught on yet?
ReplyDelete