McDonalds want to outsource drive-thru calls ??

[rh71]

I don't care as long as my food costs the same and there are no rat droppings in it. McDonalds $1 menu for life.

 

[bradruth]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus

Originally posted by: bradruth

Originally posted by: MogulMonster

If you're in L.A. ... and you hear a person with a North Dakota accent taking your order, you'll know what we're up to

A North Dakota accent? Try Indian.

Besides, there's no such thing as an ND accent...we talk normally eh.

Fixed.

Hey, that's Canada-talk!

 

[CTrain]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: CTrain
Sure it works for Dell but its apple vs orange.
We're talking about small cost items here and it changes alot and stuff that run out quite often.

This is not apples vs. oranges, this is the same exact thing. Both Dell and McDonald's are cutting costs by replacing US labor with cheap Indian labor. They both are going to be using remote call centers in India connected with a high speed network. The people in India are just answering calls. It doesn't matter if they're handling hamburger sales or computer sales.

Ummm, no its not the same thing.
McDonalds is FAST FOOD. People want their food right away.
If there is just a small glitch in the system, there will be a pile up in drive-thru.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: mcvickj
WTF?!? You are already paying someone minimum wage to do this task. I don't see how you could save any more money by outsourcing the job. /boggle

Exactly. That's why you can be sure that they're not going to eliminate a minimum wage job at the store and replace it with a minimum wage job in North Dakota. Since the worker no longer needs to be at the store, why pay someone in ND an equal wage when you can pay someone in India 1/5th the price?

They're already planning to set up the system so that people in *remote* locations can handle the orders and send the purchase info to the screens in the stores. The people doing that work can be anywhere on Earth.

Because alot of places dont have minimum wage, but living wages.

 

[MeanMeosh]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
It always amuses me to see how those who espouse capitalism when they're on the positive end of the equation can get so indignant when that same economic system starts having negative consequences for them. This is capitalism at work, folks. This should be an EXPECTED OUTCOME of our economic system for anyone who pays attention.

You're right. And then the EXPECTED OUTCOME of the customers, will be to say "heck with this BS, let's go to BK/Wendies/etc.". McD's sales numbers, and stock prices, will likely tumble even futher due to this harebrained scheme.

Edit: I just thought of something. What is considered a "sacred object" in India. Yep, that's right, the COW. What is McD's primary product? Yep, DEAD COW. I wonder how their India employees will feel about this, about working there, and how their India neighbors will feel about them working there. I expect more than one of them will end up taking some heat from this. (And they still stone people that they dont like over there. This has the potential to get ugly.)

Edit: I just thought of something else, remember in the BTTF movies, when Marty tries to order "A Pepsi" from the talking video heads on the screen, in the "Cafe 80s" or whatever it was? I wonder much much longer until we end up with a system like that?

cause you know... people in india still gasp in horror and shock when people eat cows. :roll: a lot of indians now eats meat. beef included. i can assure you that the people taking the orders will be working out of a nice call center, and use their nice wages to order some tasty beef on the way home. and their neighbors will be impressed when they bring home good money.

also, no one stones anybody anywhere near where these call centers are located. granted, some small villages still have a backwards way of thinking. and mob mentality sometime takes over. but not in the tech sectors.

 

[CTrain]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: mcvickj
WTF?!? You are already paying someone minimum wage to do this task. I don't see how you could save any more money by outsourcing the job. /boggle

Believe it or not, McD's pays a bit more than minimum, and certainly more than Wal-Mart for starters. They could easily save $1/hour/employee this way. McD's corporate profit numbers have been depressed for some time now too, perhaps they see this as a potential cost-cutting measure, to increase their profitability and stock price?

You're wrong on all accounts.
Depending on states, McDonalds do pay minimum wages.
California does, NY does but its really up the the franchise/corp.

And McDonalds been doing very very well for the past 2 years.
They have posted some of the biggest increase during the last year.
Their stock have gone from $12 to over $32.....a 170% increase.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: CTrain

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: mcvickj
WTF?!? You are already paying someone minimum wage to do this task. I don't see how you could save any more money by outsourcing the job. /boggle

Believe it or not, McD's pays a bit more than minimum, and certainly more than Wal-Mart for starters. They could easily save $1/hour/employee this way. McD's corporate profit numbers have been depressed for some time now too, perhaps they see this as a potential cost-cutting measure, to increase their profitability and stock price?

You're wrong on all accounts.
Depending on states, McDonalds do pay minimum wages.
California does, NY does but its really up the the franchise/corp.

And McDonalds been doing very very well for the past 2 years.
They have posted some of the biggest increase during the last year.
Their stock have gone from $12 to over $32.....a 170% increase.

Yes some stores in NY and Cali, but certain cities have living wages, that are significantly higher than mimimum. The McDonalds around here certainly doesnt pay $5.15 and theres not a cost of living wage enacted. There are McDonalds and other fast food restuarants in certain cities paying $7+ for the avg worker.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: CTrain

Ummm, no its not the same thing.
McDonalds is FAST FOOD. People want their food right away.
If there is just a small glitch in the system, there will be a pile up in drive-thru.

It amazes me how poorly some people fare with analogies.

This *is* the same thing. The fact that it's fast food is meaningless. The customer service positions that will be outsourced do not require face to face communications- it's all being done with cameras and microphones anyway. It doesn't matter if that closed-circuit system is running 50 feet into the store or 10,000 miles across the world, the speed of electricity is so fast that it's still happening in realtime.

It's really a very simple concept- workers in the US get paid much more than they get paid in India. Does the position REQUIRE you to be in the US? No? Ok, it's going to where the wages are cheaper.

You can't outsource (to India) jobs which require physical contact of physical transactions, but jobs which only require electronic transactions can be easily outsourced to anywhere with a data network.

 

[CTrain]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: CTrain

Ummm, no its not the same thing.
McDonalds is FAST FOOD. People want their food right away.
If there is just a small glitch in the system, there will be a pile up in drive-thru.

It amazes me how poorly some people fare with analogies.

This *is* the same thing. The fact that it's fast food is meaningless. The customer service positions that will be outsourced do not require face to face communications- it's all being done with cameras and microphones anyway. It doesn't matter if that closed-circuit system is running 50 feet into the store or 10,000 miles across the world, the speed of electricity is so fast that it's still happening in realtime.

It's really a very simple concept- workers in the US get paid much more than they get paid in India. Does the position REQUIRE you to be in the US? No? Ok, it's going to where the wages are cheaper.

You can't outsource (to India) jobs which require physical contact of physical transactions, but jobs which only require electronic transactions can be easily outsourced to anywhere with a data network.

No it amazes me that for someone who doesn't know the McDonalds system that well is going to argue with a store manager of McDonalds.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: digitalsm

Yes some stores in NY and Cali, but certain cities have living wages, that are significantly higher than mimimum. The McDonalds around here certainly doesnt pay $5.15 and theres not a cost of living wage enacted. There are McDonalds and other fast food restuarants in certain cities paying $7+ for the avg worker.

The salary required for India is much lower than anywhere in the US. Cost of living in Bangalore will be WELL below $5 an hour. Many of those jobs there only pay $2 and hour or less.

 

[Xede]

It seems like there could be service benefits on top of labor savings. Look at it this way: what's going to be the more efficient training arrangement:

1) training 100 call center specialists who work from a single location and do nothing but provide remote customer service

or

2) training 100 individual order takers at individual franchises spread out across a few counties

Scale that up from 100 people to company-wide, and the first system seems to be a more efficient way of providing good service, as long as you believe that the technology and systems can be made to work, which I do.

Although it would be possible to do a poor job and screw things up, I think there's a possibility that if done correctly this system could provide better service than what can be had under the current system.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: CTrain

No it amazes me that for someone who doesn't know the McDonalds system that well is going to argue with a store manager of McDonalds.

LOL!

The fact that you work at McDonald's doesn't really help your case.

 

[CTrain]

Let me state my point again.

Yes, outsourcing drive-thru can be done but no where as efficient as someone actually in the store(as oppose to what the article say).
But I do agree that the friendliness can go up but their main reason for this is cost cutting of course.

 

[CTrain]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: CTrain

No it amazes me that for someone who doesn't know the McDonalds system that well is going to argue with a store manager of McDonalds.

LOL!

The fact that you work at McDonald's doesn't really help your case.

No, you look stupid argueing about McDonalds when you have no idea how McDonalds system work.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: Xede
It seems like there could be service benefits on top of labor savings. Look at it this way: what's going to be the more efficient training arrangement:

1) training 100 call center specialists who work from a single location and do nothing but provide remote customer service

or

2) training 100 individual order takers at individual franchises spread out across a few counties

Scale that up from 100 people to company-wide, and the first system seems to be a more efficient way of providing good service, as long as you believe that the technology and systems can be made to work, which I do.

Exactly.

And since the system is now run solely through electronic communications whose transactions are nearly instantaneous, those call centers can be as far away from the stores as they need to be. No use paying an American wage when there's nothing stopping you from hiring cheap foreign labor.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: CTrain

No, you look stupid argueing about McDonalds when you have no idea how McDonalds system work.

You look stupid for working at McDonald's. And on top of that, you work at McDonalds. In addition, you work at McDonald's.

 

[CTrain]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: CTrain

No it amazes me that for someone who doesn't know the McDonalds system that well is going to argue with a store manager of McDonalds.

LOL!

The fact that you work at McDonald's doesn't really help your case.

Since you obviously know so much, let me give one of many scenario.

Let say the communication line got cut off somehow and because no one is trained in the store how to take order.
What are you going to do ??


This actually happenned one time when the intercomm didn't work.
We had people go outside to take orders.
Can people in India go outside to take orders ??

 

[CTrain]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: CTrain

No, you look stupid argueing about McDonalds when you have no idea how McDonalds system work.

You look stupid for working at McDonald's. And on top of that, you work at McDonalds. In addition, you work at McDonald's.

And I make $45K+ as store manager. Whats your point ??

 

[OutHouse]

this has to be the stupidist idea i have ever heard. how in the hell it is going to save money? it will cost millions of equipment setup to get the speaker system hooked up to send two way voice over wire.

also what is the hold time going to be? there is no way a call center is going to be as fast in answering drive thru orders as a mcducks employee sitting in a booth looking at you drive up.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: CTrain

No, you look stupid argueing about McDonalds when you have no idea how McDonalds system work.

You look stupid for working at McDonald's. And on top of that, you work at McDonalds. In addition, you work at McDonald's.

dude STFU, mcducks managers are competivatly paid. i bet he makes more than you do.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: CTrain

Since you obviously know so much, let me give one of many scenario.

Let say the communication line got cut off somehow and because no one is trained in the store how to take order.
What are you going to do ??


This actually happenned one time when the intercomm didn't work.
We had people go outside to take orders.
Can people in India go outside to take orders ??

First of all, your scenario is no different than if the call center was in North Dakota. This is not a problem that would be unique to the call center being in India. McDonald's has already done the studies and their best minds have figured out that this is something that they can do.

If the network connection goes down, then one of the remaining employees at the store, maybe the store manager like you, would go outside to take the orders.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: Citrix


dude STFU, mcducks managers are competivatly paid. i bet he makes more than you do.

#1- you STFU, it's McDonald's not "McDucks'.

#2- you spelled "competitively" wrong.

#3- He already stated how much he mades, and it's not more than I make.

 

[CTrain]

Let me give you another scenario.
McDonalds is very efficient as far as cost is concern.
Most employees are crossed trained(as in they know how to work grill, front, drive-thru, etc...)
Sometimes when you're shorted handed(which is all the time), you can have employees multi-task, etc...

So when you have 2(or whatever) employees far away that can just take orders, you're going to get screwed sometimes.

Once again, I'm not saying it couldn't work, it just wouldn't be very efficient.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: Citrix
this has to be the stupidist idea i have ever heard.

"stupidist"?

 

[jai6638]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
It always amuses me to see how those who espouse capitalism when they're on the positive end of the equation can get so indignant when that same economic system starts having negative consequences for them.

This is capitalism at work, folks. This should be an EXPECTED OUTCOME of our economic system for anyone who pays attention.