Welcome to my blog.

As I said in my entry, I applaud the use of the technology. I remember when it was being used before the just-in-time food preparation days. Then it worked really well because food could be stacked up waiting for you.

I think the difficulty comes with the new system (which is slower) mixed in with a tool that is geared to push customers through more quickly.

I’m sure you’ll iron this out; my particular experience was being queued up behind 3 other customers also waiting for their food. I suppose high school students accept this, but I’m not a high school student and took offense. When I raised it with the poor girl behind the counter all she could say was that she had to keep serving as that is what she was told to do.

You’ll get the system working properly, my only request is not to forget that there are people behind the money, and your team should always have this in front of mind - before the number of burgers per minute.

Cheers and good luck.

I was disappointed to read your article on the use of handheld PDAs being used at Lambton Quay McDonald’s and the issues surrounding the wait for orders when you arrive at the counter. I am the owner of this McDonald’s having recently purchased it at the beginning of March. One of the first things i noticed at L/Qy was the slow speed of service so I introduced the use of the handheld order system. This has definitely had a positive effect in that we are serving more customers at lunchtime than previously. One problem is that sometimes orders do get behind in the kitchen and people end up waiting for their food. (We are working on this) Because our new cooking platform is made to order the use of handhelds enable us to generally have the food prepared and ready by the time you reach the counter. Sometimes however one queue can move faster than the other and this can cause issues where food is not ready by the time the customer reaches the counter. One thing we are assessing is the use of a bank queuing system at lunchtimes where it evens out the speed of service and the orders are taken in chronological order. This system we believe may iron out the issues you have raised but we wont know until we try it. I would be interested in any comments you may have regarding this and anything else you may want to suggest as customer feedback is always good to get either postive or negative.

Yours Sincerely,

Rob Duncan
Franchisee - Lambton Quay.