What is with this new trend in drive through windows?

Realize that decisions like that come from Corporate. It’s probably part of trying to make the customer feel like the food is custom made just for them – “have it your way.”

This is the first I’m hearing of this, but as @jca says, I imagine that it’s a way to make people feel like everything is personalized. Having the same general greeting is probably also intended to streamline and create greater consistency within all of the restaurants in the chain. If it’s recorded, it probably also cuts time.

@everyone True… but if that is the case… how come both Mcdonalds and Wendy’s chose the exact some wording? My Mcdonald’s, or My Wendy’s.

Just another bonehead corporate decision. People who have ownership in a process are more likely to do a better job. Telling employees that this is “their” window is a tactic. Cynical, cold blooded, and probably pointless in the long run. True ownership is more than lip service, and people in those positions know damn well they have no such thing.

I don’t think they’re trying to make the customer feel like they have ownership, @Trillian, I think they’re trying to make the customer feel like the food is personalized to their taste.

I’ve read that the order taking is outsourced, and the voice could be half a world away. The reports I found on an internet search seemed to be very old.

@Trillian I really don’t think that this is aimed for employees at all. I don’t see how that would really motivate workers at all, and huge corporations like McDonald’s aren’t stupid enough to think that it would. Rather they’re smart enough to know that if a customer feels that they got personal attention and good customer service, they will come back and spread the experience they had at their fast food restaurant.

@YARNLADY If that’s true, it must be extremely uncommon. I have never had my order taken by someone in a different country. I would say that 99% of the time, the voice that took my order at the drive-through belongs to the person who handed me my meal and took my payment. And when it wasn’t, it was because one person takes orders while another handles the rest. I know fast food restaurants were toying with the idea in the past, but I don’t believe that most major companies actually ended up outsourcing order-taking.

I can’t begin to imagine that out sourcing a voice for a local restaurant could in ANY way be profitable! What if the outsourcer gets the order wrong?! There are too many different ways that you have to deal with the people who take your order that I can’t begin to imagine outsourcing it!

McD’s has a recorded voice that says, “Hi! Would you like to try our blueberry cheesecake latte today? Order when ready!” What the voice is suggesting you try changes every couple of days, but it’s the same girl. She sounds all nasally and snotty, like she has a cold, and it is SOOOOO annoying. I asked about it once. They said it is recorded by an actual employee there at our local McD’s, and they don’t like it either.

After the recording, a real person comes on and asks to take your order.

Both McDonald’s and Wendy’s corporations franchise their chains, meaning anyone can own one as long as they sign a contract, pay the fees and meet company standards.

It could very well be that the the two restaurants that you visit are owned by the same person. Maybe the owner came up with this idea or read it somewhere and decided to make it a policy at all of their properties.

The best way to find out is to ask the next time you go to one.

I’m still trying to figure out why it would annoy you no matter what they say??? As long as they don’t screw up your order or over charge you, who cares????? @mowens chill baby chill.

Most of the time those intercoms are so hard to understand I can’t tell what they are telling me.

@woodcutter Do you mean like the teacher in this Peanuts video clip?

@Pied_Pfeffer It’s worse than that sometimes. It appears they can’t understand whatever I say either.

I’ve never experienced this, but I am experiencing a powerful lust for Checkers.

I’m just astonished that you’re “greatly annoyed” by a canned greeting on a drive-in window kiosk. The most outrage that I can summon for most of the changes I don’t like in modern life is head-shaking bemusement. I’ll try to work on my dudgeon.

@bookish1 – not a big fan of their burgers, but Checkers fries are the best.

@elbanditoroso : Agreed! I don’t eat meat anyway but I’d just go nuts for some spicy fries right now, haha.

Checker’s was faboo until Five Guy’s came in and OWNED.

I was kidding. It doesn’t greatly annoy me, but you have to admit… it is odd. What may we make for you today?

THATS WEIRD!!! :)

@mowens : Well if you put it like that, it seems to me it must be intended to keep you from thinking of the fact that most of the food is trucked in frozen and half cooked…

@bookish1 But it tastes good! :)

What’s wrong with frozen food, anyway? It’s one of the greatest advances in humankind, and not to be scoffed at.

@CWOTUS : You have a point, sir! I was scoffing more at marketing :-p

@CWOTUS – that is so true. Frozen fruit and veg are much better for you than most so called fresh at the grocery store because the frozen was picked and thrown into a freezer within hours whereas the “fresh” is picked green and shipped all over the place before you buy it and take it home. Meat as well. Now if muslims could just be convinced of that so Australia could stop the live imports of cattle, sheep and goats. It is so sad to see these terrified creatures stuffed and crammed onto road trains and then the holds of ships to be sent to an agonizing death if they survive the journey.