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102 Comments
- anagoge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31Alternatively, get OUT of your car, go INTO Burger King and order in person.
I'm sure the few calories burnt in doing such a strenuous excersize will be useful. - Chebyshev, on 10/12/2007, -13/+37because I'm sure the typical chinese/indian consumer is so much more savvy than the typical american... seriously what are you talking about?
- RetroRufio, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23@borninda818
that's not very nice, I think YOU'RE stupid :-P - gabeN, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22"with a pickle"
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Soon we'll have a large machine resting in our kitchens with IV tubes running to the couch where we will inject ourselves with pure corn syrup and fat.
Mmm. "smacks lips" I can still taste it! - anagoge, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17That can't be right. How can it possibly make more sense to give the job of taking someone's order to someone in India, rather than someone a few feet away from the customer, all because the guy in India costs less to hire?
Oh wait... - borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18did you notice the "now hiring" sign...lol
- Juncti, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14But when you get inside you'll just find a Max Headroom machine sitting there.
"Hello, welcome to B-B-B-Burger King, may I t-t-t-take your order please?" - canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14mcdonald's actually did a test program where they outsourced the drive through calls to india, got significant time savings as a result.
if anyone is interested in a more in depth look at things like this that are really happening, i highly recommend reading "the world is flat" - MobbyG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Did anyone else see the episode of 30 Days, where the programmer lost his job and then went to India for 30 days to see where it went? I didn't like the fact that our jobs are going overseas, but then you see how they live and how much that job means to them with the income and their culture and everything changes.
It made me re think my opinion. - falcon707, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Why are there so many idiots who post these pointless comments on Digg!? Seems like the world is gaining more and more stupid people every day...
- artemster, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11"large machine resting in our kitchens with IV tubes running to the couch"
You mean the internet? - vjgroup, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Only problem with this is that people aren't smart enough to be able to properly use the touch screen. I worked in a supermarket that had self checkout lanes and I was the “attendant,” for my entire shift I would run from machine to machine just to tell each Customer what they were doing wrong. But I did notice the pattern of senior citizens having the most trouble. Hey maybe if there was a person that would read back the order to the customer to check if it was correct, but then again its generally the person making the sandwich that screws up the order.
- LexisNexis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Dude, nobody thought it was real, and nobody brought up even the question that it might be real. It was so obviously fake that I had to read your comment twice to figure out what you were talking about.
- anagoge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I think you could probably make a lot of money by setting up the world's first online-only fast food ordering service.
Let me know if you're hiring. ;) - KanosWRX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Here is the solution that will solve all of this and make it so they don't need anyone taking the order. Just put a touch screen monitor out there and people just point and click on what they want. Say they want a number 2. The click that, then it has a list of what toppings they want, then a list of what drink they want, then a check box if they want to value size it. God if it was only that easy, you don't know how many times I have gone to wendy's or taco bell and gotten the wrong order. Just give me a screen where I pick what I want and what I want on it.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Not all that crazy. The normal system which has the order taker in the restaurant itself is generally using somebody who's trying to do two things at once: Take orders over a fairly crappy communication system, and fill orders to the window or possibly even to the front counter. Some stores tried to eliminate this problem by having a second window with a person that does nothing but take orders and take money, but this is not cost effective for the business, as there are periods where this person essentially does nothing at all.
Whereas an order center can have people taking orders from several different locations and routing those orders back to the store, thus freeing up the store from this job entirely. The people there can focus on making food and taking in cash only. The central call center is more cost effective because you can hire one person to service lots of stores at once, eliminating the downtime. You can also bring people in and out at different times based on expected call volume. Lunch is a peak time, for example, so you can have more staff there during those hours and less at other hours. With cheap communications and automatic routing to the stores and to the call handler, this is way more cost effective, and probably gives better service as the call handler does nothing but take orders all day, and thus has no distractions. You still get screw ups at the store, but probably less of them as they are not splitting their attention between giving the food to the guy and taking the order of somebody else entirely.
Makes perfect sense, really.
Now, outsourcing this sort of thing overseas doesn't make any sense at all. But having a regional call center certainly does. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Smarter than la'mont...
- jswanner, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Some McDonald's restaurants have already started testing out the call center idea.
http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/2004/07/welcome_to_mcdo.html - astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I would like a No. 2 burger please....
*** Indian Sitar playing through the ordering speaker ***
"please wait impaitent american man..." - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4>>>"Will go the way of drive in movies when we got VHS. There are very few outdoor movies extant today in US."
Haven't you heard? The drive-in theater is making a comeback. The number of drive-ins in the country is actually increasing. New ones (well, old ones that have been refurbished) are opening all over the place. They're getting to be quite popular in some areas. - lightandfire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Funny...Hindus don't eat pork...but they eat beef?
At least if you're gonna make a video...do some research, monkey. - jmdajr, on 10/12/2007, -8/+11FAST FOOD IS KILLING US!
- pinetec, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Waste of my time. Very stupid.
- got-haggis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6while this is fake, you know they are really trying this out in the midwest? It's crazy, but apparently it actaully speeds up order taking. Still seems crazy to me.
- montiff, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5omg this is ***** lame
- maskow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3All the Bush voters love this one.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5They've tried that before, but outdoor screens are not robust enough to handle the weather, generally speaking. Not to mention kids smashing the things.
- missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5It's not outsourcing if your employees come from da 'hood.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7No, fast food is only killing you, because you don't have a proper immune system. The rest of us are just fine, but thanks for your concern.
- ripdog99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Thank you for your insight.
/Sarcasm - kellymahan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Well i guess the guy was only a little crazy then. However the fuse thing is real. We had a dryer go out on us and took it in for repair. The guy took off the back panel and showed me where they had 2 fuses wired in series on the same electric line. One slightly lower voltage or amps limit (can't remember which) than the other. He said the lower one was done that way so it would go out every couple of years with normal use, and that the other was the real limiter on keeping the dryer safe. He just cut the wires on each end of the fuse and connected them directly. No problems after that.
- VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I always laugh when there's a GIANT line of cars for the drive-through, and absolutely no one inside at the counter. So long, suckers...
- NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Sheetz/Wawa already does touch screens.
- bobothn, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6i dont think that is what is going to happen i think it will be more like an atm when you order you can slide your card and enter what you want then have some kid in back making the sandwitches.or for that matter have them all factory made and have some with every option. and have a superfast microwave heat them up and spit them out a slot.
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, theres actually nothing funny in this. It was a waste of 2 minutes and 50 seconds.
Seriously, wheres the punchline, or anything comical.
To me it is just a stupid guy getting frustrated at Burger King... Not one bit funny at all. - jreno3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1call center ordering is coming using integration with voip and ip based kitchen systems to place your order in the queue. McDonald's has seen increases in accuracy of order taking since the order taker is in a quiet controlled environment.
- golddigga, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1why do we need to know how long this video is?
- mherskovitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1very funny. the people who wrote long, critical comments need to both get a life and some sort of a sense of humor. this is supposed to be a satire; do you really think it matters whether the call center employee is hindu or Muslim? jeesh, lighten up. have a great labor day weekend (at least for those of you still employed here in the USA)
- spacebar14, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Welcome to the Cafe 80's. Where its always morning in America, even in the aftern-n-n-oon!
- canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6because the guy 4 ft away from you no longer has to worry about listening to you and trying to get your food together at the same time. when you give your call to a guy in india, he drops the order in his computer, it pops up on the screen inside the mcdonalds you are at. now, the on site staff can concentrate on getting your oder together quickly and correctly, and then moving right along to preparing the next order.
- missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Microwaves ruin bread and still heat unevenly. I prefer the heat lamp, thankyouverymuch.
- CaptHowdy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think the idea is that 2-3 outsourced people can handle 4-5 drivethru's. not necessarily that ratio, but the whole idea that you have less operators than drivethrus.
- Nate_LapT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Never heard of Check over the phone :P
I could just see it now, little kid sitting by the ordering box, writing down credit card numbers as people order. Better install that card swiper. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Kevin Rose... is that you in disguise?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2McDonald's has been doing this for almost two years in Oregon. It's because minimum wage in Oregon is currently $7.35 whereas it is $5.15 in many other states.
- pittpat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That was stupid!
- sodascape, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Wow, that was kinda dumb!
- theman8631, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Its a trend on not only digg but I any other comment site, I have the feeling its from the popularity of youtube and a trend for internet users to feel that any comment box warrents whatever mundain thought is going through their head.
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