Now They’re Outsourcing McDonalds

What would you say if I told you that the next time you pull up to a McDonalds or a Hardee’s drivethru to place your order, the person on the other end of that speaker could be 12 feet away or 150 miles away or a continent away?

Would you believe me?

I mean, surely computer companies aren’t the only ones who can utilize the anti-American dream of outsourcing; the promise of lower pay in sweatshop-like conditions can be the hope of any industry if well-thought out.

And fast food has found a way to join in the fun.

A call center in Santa Maria, CA, pays around 35 employees minimum wage to take orders for about 40 McDonalds as far away as Honolulu, Gulf Port,  and Gillette, Wyo.  This arrangement saves a few seconds per order.

Jon Anton, a founder of Bronco, says that the goal is “saving seconds to make millions,” because more efficient service can lead to more sales and lower labor costs. With a wireless system in a Home Depot, for example, a call-center operator might tell a customer, “You’re at Aisle D6. Let me walk you over to where you can find the 16-penny nails,” Mr. Anton said.

Efficiency is certainly the mantra at the Bronco call center, which has grown from 15 workers six months ago to 125 today. Its workers are experts in the McDonald’s menu; they are trained to be polite, to urge customers to add items to their order and, above all, to be fast. Each worker takes up to 95 orders an hour during peak times.

Customers pulling up to the drive-through menu are connected to the computer of a call-center employee using Internet calling technology. The first thing the McDonald’s customer hears is a prerecorded greeting in the voice of the employee. The order-takers’ screens include the menu and an indication of the whether it is time for breakfast or lunch at the local restaurant. A “notes” section shows if that restaurant has called in to say that it is out of a particular item.

When the customer pulls away from the menu to pay for the food and pick it up, it takes around 10 seconds for another car to pull forward. During that time, Mr. King said, his order-takers can be answering a call from a different McDonald’s where someone has already pulled up.

The remote order-takers at Bronco earn the minimum wage ($6.75 an hour in California), do not get health benefits and do not wear uniforms. Ms. Vargas, who recently finished high school, wore jeans and a baggy white sweatshirt as she took orders last week.

The call-center system allows employees to be monitored and tracked much more closely than would be possible if they were in restaurants. Mr. King’s computer screen gives him constant updates as to which workers are not meeting standards. “You’ve got to measure everything,” he said. “When fractions of seconds count, the environment needs to be controlled.” [“The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast Food Order” (The New York Times)]

Employees are subjected to constant electronic scrutiny with software tracking her productivity, speed and awareness.  A computer in the breakroom keeps employees alert as to just how many minutes they have been away from their desks.

And the order-taking is not always seamless. Often customers’ voices are faint, forcing the workers to ask for things to be repeated. During recent rainstorms in Hawaii, it was particularly hard to hear orders from there over the din.[“The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast Food Order” (The New York Times)]

Like I said above and as Jill @ Brilliant at Breakfast points out, they’re testing this outsourcing here in the States, but what’s to stop them from following the way of IT off to another country where they pay practically nothing, leaving Americans unemployed?

And you can’t tell them to get an education because those jobs are being outsourced over there too.

tags: outsourcing, McDonalds, New York Times

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