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Richard Meryhew, Star Tribune
July 27, 2004 BURGERS0727
BRAINERD, MINN. -- Ellie Feld pulled into the drive-through lane at the McDonald's in west Brainerd the other day, craving a double cheeseburger.
As she leaned out the window of her Chevy Blazer to place her order through a speaker box, Feld was greeted by the friendly voice of an order taker she thought was working inside.
"I assumed it was somebody in here," Feld said, pointing to the restaurant only a few feet away.
Not even close.
Four states away in a Colorado Springs call center, "Linda" recorded Feld's order and flashed it onto a computer screen inside the kitchen of the Brainerd McDonald's. Less than 2 minutes later, Feld drove away, a smile on her face and a burger in hand.
Convoluted? Maybe.
But in the highly competitive fast-food business, where speed is money, the outsourcing of drive-through orders via high-speed data lines may be the wave of the future.
Tammy Wilson talks to Colorado while ordering from Brainerd.David BrewsterStar Tribune"This technology is going to transform the industry, no question about it," said Steve Bigari, who owns 12 McDonald's franchises in Colorado.
Bigari opened the call center in June 2003 in an attempt to improve service to drive-through customers. "In a nutshell, it's better, cheaper and faster for my guests," he said.
First in Minnesota
Glen Cook, who bought the Brainerd restaurant in 1991 and was the first restaurant owner outside of Colorado Springs to use Bigari's call center technology, said it has made for more accurate order taking, too.
Since Cook began using the center in September, he said, his restaurant has made fewer mistakes on orders and improved drive-through turnaround time by an average of 20 seconds per order.
"It's a seamless operation," said Cook, who, with his son, Glen Cook Jr., runs two McDonald's franchises in Brainerd.
Each time a drive-through customer places an order at the speaker box and menu board, it is transmitted to a computer screen at the call center, where an employee reads back the order to confirm it.
The order, along with a photograph taken at the drive-through location, is then instantaneously printed on a video screen in the food preparation area of the restaurant where the order was placed.
A photo? It's taken to match customers with their orders, and it's destroyed after the food is served, Bigari said.
"In most McDonalds, you've got someone to take the order, make the change and go get the food -- you've got somebody doing three things," Cook said. "Here, someone is sitting at the call center and they have nothing else to do. They are not multitasking."
Nothing to lose
Addressing the issue that the outsourcing takes jobs away from local residents, Cook said that an overall increase in his business has prompted him to hire more employees and consider building a call center of his own in Brainerd.
He credits the technology for a "double-digit" percentage increase in sales since September, which in turn, has prompted him to hire two additional managers and eight to 10 additional part-time employees, he said.
"Obviously," Cook said, "I'm a believer."
Bill Whitman, a spokesman for McDonald's Corp. in Oak Brook, Ill., said that it's too early to know whether the technology will be embraced by McDonald's or other fast-food chains.
Currently, he said, less than 1 percent of the 13,500 McDonald's restaurants in the United States use it, most on a trial basis.
Nevertheless, "In the limited testing we're doing, we're seeing the speed of the service has improved," Whitman said. "And the reason for the improvement is that the order taker is not also responsible to make change. Their responsibility is very streamlined."
Bob Sandelman, president of a market research firm in California that tracks the restaurant industry, said he was unaware that fast-food chains were using call centers.
But he isn't surprised.
Competition for the fast-food dollar is so intense, he said, "that anything a drive-through chain can do to improve the speed and order accuracy is going to be well received by customers."
Currently, more than 40 percent of the fast-food sales -- and even more for the hamburger chains -- come from drive-through business, Sandelman said. To improve speed and accuracy and ultimately, boost sales, Sandelman said, chains continually tinker with improving speaker systems and video boards and the idea of offering customers the option of paying with credit or debit cards.
"It is a very competitive business," Whitman said. "We know that some 60 percent of our business at our freestanding restaurants is at the drive-through. So speed of service is important."
Which is why Cook turned to the Colorado call center in September after visiting one of Bigari's restaurants.
"I'm not a tech guy," Cook said. "But the worst thing that happens is that it doesn't work. So I really had nothing to lose."
Cook called a phone company, which installed a high-speed data line for use once the restaurant remodeled and reopened in September. The restaurant also offers dine-in service where customers can place an order from a table-side phone. Those orders are routed through Colorado, too.
In the event the call center service would fail, Cook said, the restaurant still has the capability and technology to take orders in house.
"A lot more testing has to go on," Cook said of the call center. "But this, to me, has promise."
Business boom
Customers, meanwhile, don't seem to mind because they don't know the difference.
"It doesn't matter" who takes the order or where the order taker sits, Feld said as she moved through the drive-through line during a recent lunch hour. "As long as they get my food right, I'm happy."
Employees like it, too.
"It's nice to have somebody else do it," said Brielle Martin, a manager who remembers taking orders when she worked at a McDonald's in another community. "It's a lot easier -- and I love not wearing the headset."
Cook declined to disclose his restaurant's sales numbers and admitted that there may be other reasons, beyond the new order-taking technology, for his restaurant's recent success.
Some of it may be explained by the appeal of the 1950s "retro" or "diner-style" look of his rebuilt restaurant, some by the efficiency of adding a second drive-through lane and video order screens during the 2003 remodeling.
Nevertheless, he said, the cost of using the Colorado call center-- employees there make about 40 cents an hour more than the $7.50 average earned by most McDonald's line employees, Bigari said -- is more than offset by the increase in business.
"The only people who are losers," he said, "are the competition."
Richard Meryhew is at richm@startribune.com.
July 27, 2004 BURGERS0727
BRAINERD, MINN. -- Ellie Feld pulled into the drive-through lane at the McDonald's in west Brainerd the other day, craving a double cheeseburger.
As she leaned out the window of her Chevy Blazer to place her order through a speaker box, Feld was greeted by the friendly voice of an order taker she thought was working inside.
"I assumed it was somebody in here," Feld said, pointing to the restaurant only a few feet away.
Not even close.
Four states away in a Colorado Springs call center, "Linda" recorded Feld's order and flashed it onto a computer screen inside the kitchen of the Brainerd McDonald's. Less than 2 minutes later, Feld drove away, a smile on her face and a burger in hand.
Convoluted? Maybe.
But in the highly competitive fast-food business, where speed is money, the outsourcing of drive-through orders via high-speed data lines may be the wave of the future.
Tammy Wilson talks to Colorado while ordering from Brainerd.David BrewsterStar Tribune"This technology is going to transform the industry, no question about it," said Steve Bigari, who owns 12 McDonald's franchises in Colorado.
Bigari opened the call center in June 2003 in an attempt to improve service to drive-through customers. "In a nutshell, it's better, cheaper and faster for my guests," he said.
First in Minnesota
Glen Cook, who bought the Brainerd restaurant in 1991 and was the first restaurant owner outside of Colorado Springs to use Bigari's call center technology, said it has made for more accurate order taking, too.
Since Cook began using the center in September, he said, his restaurant has made fewer mistakes on orders and improved drive-through turnaround time by an average of 20 seconds per order.
"It's a seamless operation," said Cook, who, with his son, Glen Cook Jr., runs two McDonald's franchises in Brainerd.
Each time a drive-through customer places an order at the speaker box and menu board, it is transmitted to a computer screen at the call center, where an employee reads back the order to confirm it.
The order, along with a photograph taken at the drive-through location, is then instantaneously printed on a video screen in the food preparation area of the restaurant where the order was placed.
A photo? It's taken to match customers with their orders, and it's destroyed after the food is served, Bigari said.
"In most McDonalds, you've got someone to take the order, make the change and go get the food -- you've got somebody doing three things," Cook said. "Here, someone is sitting at the call center and they have nothing else to do. They are not multitasking."
Nothing to lose
Addressing the issue that the outsourcing takes jobs away from local residents, Cook said that an overall increase in his business has prompted him to hire more employees and consider building a call center of his own in Brainerd.
He credits the technology for a "double-digit" percentage increase in sales since September, which in turn, has prompted him to hire two additional managers and eight to 10 additional part-time employees, he said.
"Obviously," Cook said, "I'm a believer."
Bill Whitman, a spokesman for McDonald's Corp. in Oak Brook, Ill., said that it's too early to know whether the technology will be embraced by McDonald's or other fast-food chains.
Currently, he said, less than 1 percent of the 13,500 McDonald's restaurants in the United States use it, most on a trial basis.
Nevertheless, "In the limited testing we're doing, we're seeing the speed of the service has improved," Whitman said. "And the reason for the improvement is that the order taker is not also responsible to make change. Their responsibility is very streamlined."
Bob Sandelman, president of a market research firm in California that tracks the restaurant industry, said he was unaware that fast-food chains were using call centers.
But he isn't surprised.
Competition for the fast-food dollar is so intense, he said, "that anything a drive-through chain can do to improve the speed and order accuracy is going to be well received by customers."
Currently, more than 40 percent of the fast-food sales -- and even more for the hamburger chains -- come from drive-through business, Sandelman said. To improve speed and accuracy and ultimately, boost sales, Sandelman said, chains continually tinker with improving speaker systems and video boards and the idea of offering customers the option of paying with credit or debit cards.
"It is a very competitive business," Whitman said. "We know that some 60 percent of our business at our freestanding restaurants is at the drive-through. So speed of service is important."
Which is why Cook turned to the Colorado call center in September after visiting one of Bigari's restaurants.
"I'm not a tech guy," Cook said. "But the worst thing that happens is that it doesn't work. So I really had nothing to lose."
Cook called a phone company, which installed a high-speed data line for use once the restaurant remodeled and reopened in September. The restaurant also offers dine-in service where customers can place an order from a table-side phone. Those orders are routed through Colorado, too.
In the event the call center service would fail, Cook said, the restaurant still has the capability and technology to take orders in house.
"A lot more testing has to go on," Cook said of the call center. "But this, to me, has promise."
Business boom
Customers, meanwhile, don't seem to mind because they don't know the difference.
"It doesn't matter" who takes the order or where the order taker sits, Feld said as she moved through the drive-through line during a recent lunch hour. "As long as they get my food right, I'm happy."
Employees like it, too.
"It's nice to have somebody else do it," said Brielle Martin, a manager who remembers taking orders when she worked at a McDonald's in another community. "It's a lot easier -- and I love not wearing the headset."
Cook declined to disclose his restaurant's sales numbers and admitted that there may be other reasons, beyond the new order-taking technology, for his restaurant's recent success.
Some of it may be explained by the appeal of the 1950s "retro" or "diner-style" look of his rebuilt restaurant, some by the efficiency of adding a second drive-through lane and video order screens during the 2003 remodeling.
Nevertheless, he said, the cost of using the Colorado call center-- employees there make about 40 cents an hour more than the $7.50 average earned by most McDonald's line employees, Bigari said -- is more than offset by the increase in business.
"The only people who are losers," he said, "are the competition."
Richard Meryhew is at richm@startribune.com.
