I’m not sure I understand this.
In an effort to reduce costs and speed up drive-thru times, fast food restaurants are looking at some, well, interesting methods. One is to monitor the food on hand with the queue, and make educated guesses as to what will be ordered. But more interestingly, some restaurants are looking at using call centers for taking their orders. From CNN:
…some stores are using central call centers rather than cashiers in the restaurant to take orders from drive-thru customers.
Now it doesn’t say where these call centers are located, but whenever I think of call centers, I think of India. So following my (likely flawed) logic, if I want to order something at McDonalds, I might end up talking to someone in India. And in their best-effort-but-still-really-bad English, they’ll ask if I want fries with that. I’m really having a hard time understanding how this would really save any money. Someone still has to be there to collect your money and give you your food.
What am I missing?
bastone.org 
2 replies on “Outsource Your Order?”
i’ve heard about this too. i think it’s all about efficiency. you have someone, likely in india, who takes the orders, and sends it back to the local store, probably on a computer screen. so the people making the stuff only have to look at the computer screen and see what to make next. and you only need one person at the window giving the order to the customer and taking the money, and that’s all that person has to do. no multi-tasking like taking an order while giving an order. the person sitting at a computer in india will be far more skilled at taking orders, and will do it and convey it more quickly than the local stoner at mcd’s. send your order half way around the world, so it can come back to you more quickly – now that’s efficient.
So does this mean that McDonalds is going to start offering curry shakes? Mmmmm, yummmy!