I drove up to the McDonald’s drive-through speaker box the other day with the intentions of quickly ordering lunch. Instead of a conversation with the employee inside, what I got was a…

Prerecorded Fast Food Drive Through Greeting

A friendly and chipper female voice coming from the drive-through speaker said, “Good evening, would you like to try one of our extra value meals?” (or something similar).  At first, I was shocked that a McDonald’s employee could sound that happy and enthusiastic after taking fast food orders all day.  But then it dawned on me that it was around 2 p.m. and made me wonder why I was greeted with “good evening.”

I shrugged it off and started to place my order. After ordering my first item, I paused to wait for some kind of confirmation that the employee was listening. Nothing. I waited another couple of minutes. Still nothing. Finally, a few minutes later, an unenthusiastic male voice came on the speaker and swiftly said, “Go ahead wit’ yo’ order.”

It was then that I realized that I had been duped by an automated greeting as I pulled up to the drive-through speaker. Now, I had encountered in the past what I was pretty sure was a McDonald’s call-center-equipped drive-through. The live person on the other end of the speaker was clearly not inside the restaurant but rather sitting comfortably in a cubicle somewhere, gladly taking my order. It was obvious that this was the case as when I drove up to the window to pay for my food, the employee standing there was not quite as friendly and barely spoke English.

I’m all for the idea of using call centers to ensure that the non-English-speaker standing in the window doesn’t incorrectly punch in my order. But is the automatic greeting really needed? If the real employee isn’t ready to take an order, what good is it to be greeted immediately upon pulling up to the speaker? It’s just going to make the customer repeat his/her order when the employee is finally ready to take it. Moreover, the split between the friendly prerecorded female voice and the not-so-friendly McDonald’s employee is rather jarring. Without the friendly voice, one might not notice that the employee in the restaurant isn’t happy working there, but when the two are juxtaposed, it becomes quite obvious.

I’m not at all complaining about those unfriendliness of McDonald’s employees. Some are friendly, many are not. I certainly wouldn’t be in a good mood after absorbing grease fumes all day. While I do encourage McDonald’s to use any technology available to help ensure my order is given to me correctly, I don’t think a prerecorded greeting helps in any way. Instead, it has the potential to confuse customers and even cause them to give up and drive away without ordering anything after no one responds beyond the initial fake message.

Have you encountered one of these prerecorded messages at a fast food restaurant? How about a call-center equipped drive-through? Comment on your experiences.