Wendy's plans to replace workers with self-service kiosks

http://abc7ny.com/business/wendys-to-replace-workers-with-machines/1342591/

21 47 10 years ago

op00to• 10 years ago

This is great. I love ordering via kiosk at Wawa convienence stores in the Philanthropic area. No misunderstandings, you can easily see what's available on the menu at that moment, and generally the ordering process moves a lot quicker since there's more parallelism. This is perfect for fast food.

reustle2• 10 years ago

Seriously. I ate so many hoagies from wawa in high school that I had my ordering technique down to a science. I went from screen 1 to printing receipt in 10-12 seconds every time. It really threw me off when they'd add/remove a item in menu and things would reflow slightly.

gambiting4• 10 years ago

Nearly every McDonald near me(north east UK) has multiple kiosks - so much easier than ordering in person.

transfire• 10 years ago

The min wage raise is just being used as cover. This was bound to happen eventually regardless.

reustle2• 10 years ago

It definitely would have happened regardless, but this sure gave them a good reason to invest more. The straw that broke the camel's back, you could say.

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

One of the benefits of a high minimum wage. Why develop new technology when slaves are cheap?

commentzorro• 10 years ago

Yup. Time to drag out the old, "minimum wage increases is killing jobs. No increases in minimum wages ... No mandated minimum wage" rhetoric.

mcphage2• 10 years ago

Definitely. I don't know what the wage would have to be to make human cashiers cost effective vs. kiosks, but I'm guessing it's on the order of pennies per hour.

jbuzbee2• 10 years ago

I recently saw these at several fast-food outlets in New Zealand and Australia. Worked fine and there was less chance of a screwed up order. As the article says, this is a direct consequence of raising the minimum wage higher than the market rate. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...

milhous• 10 years ago

While everyone's heard the minimum wage-automation argument many times over, wasn't POS kiosks the inevitable next step regardless of wages? Sheetz and Wawa have been doing this for decades in the Northeast US, so why hasn't McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, etc followed suit? Is it due to public pressure, and/or the cost of deploying infrastructure?

jbuzbee2• 10 years ago

The equation is pretty direct. When the cost of an employee is greater than the value the employee brings to the organization, something has to change or else the organization goes out of business. I'm not familiar with Sheetz and Wawa, but maybe these companies felt that the novelty or accuracy of Kiosks brought additional customers in, justifying their expense even with a low labor cost. Other companies may not have felt so. But now that minimum wages are being pushed higher, these companies are going to re-evaluate the cost vs. value equation. When the local Dairy Queen in Fresno, is forced to pay a High School kid a rate of $31,000 a year to hand out soft-serve ice-cream cones, you can bet that the owner is looking at self-serve options...

[edit for typo]

Torgo• 10 years ago

Tax breaks in exchange for bringing jobs to a community? I'm sure government largess focuses into the equation. "Free market", haha. Programs originally meant to help people tying them to pyramid-construction projects.

intopieces2• 10 years ago

As the article says, this is a direct consequence of raising the minimum wage higher than the market rate.

And I consider it a resounding success for humanity. Automate everything, we will find work or find Basic Income if we need to. There is no reason we shouldn't push headlong into full automation. The fast-food order taker job is not worth saving.

james_pm• 10 years ago

This is already happening at McDonald's in Canada. It's a far superior system with larger touchscreens allowing for multiple ordering stations. Staff concentrates on filling orders instead of struggling to take orders where language and noise is a constant problem.

For those who want to order with a human, there are a couple of registers for that. It won't be long before talking to a human to order seems old fashioned.

This is also a prime example of how speech interfaces are not the solution to everything. Ordering fast food on a touch screen takes seconds vs. talking to a human being. A chat bot would have been terrible in this case, although I'm sure some restaurants will experiment with it (perhaps at the drive thru).

spacecowboy_lon2• 10 years ago

Its all fun and games until some one puts skimmers / malware on the kiosks and appears on Brian Krebs site as the latest hack.

I am not putting my CC or DD card anywhere near a conatctless system - I keep a > 3£k balance on my Santander DD to get the good interest rate.

gambiting4• 10 years ago

This guys puts a skimmer on your regular machine, no contactless needed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y83ZgzuFBSE

And the fear of contactless payments is almost funny - someone would need to go to ridiculous length to read a card via PayWave/PayPass(the card won't reply to a non-genuine key, so you would need to have an actual authorized reader or access to one), and the most you can spend is 25 pounds per transaction, and you can only do it 5 times before you have to enter the pin. In the meantime, you can anonymously buy thousands of stolen card numbers online - so why bother with contactless? I will always use it if there is an option to.

oarsinsync• 10 years ago

You don't want to keep all your money in a single account, regardless, and if you do, you definitely don't want a card on that account that you use in the wild.

Specific UK example that happened recently to a friend of mine, he had a single HSBC current account with ~£5000 in it. He had a debit card with that account, and used that in ATMs, at restaurants, etc. as his primary spending mechanism. His debit card got cloned and the account emptied.

There are protections in place, one of which that he still had possession of the card, that resulted in him getting all the money refunded to his account. However, the process took six weeks. For the duration of that time, he had no money at all.

Since then, he has a separate account that he uses for ATMs (never keeps more than £500 in there) and all other spending goes on a credit card, which gets paid off in full every month. If his ATM card gets cloned, he's out £500 at most for a few weeks until he gets it refunded. If his credit card gets cloned, he's not out a single penny, as disputed transactions are struck from statement balances due at the end of the month.

gerpsh• 10 years ago

Ordering fast food on a touch screen takes seconds vs. talking to a human being.

Does it though? Verbalizing my order to a person who is highly proficient in using the ordering interface has always been quicker than having to manually find the items I want and enter them.

I can see how this could reduce error, but I think this has more to do with cutting costs than adding efficiency to the ordering process.

throwaway2016a3• 10 years ago

If...

- You have good eyesight and can see the menu behind the counter

- You speak the same language as the order taker or they speak your's

- The person behind the counter actually is proficient at the machine

Then you run into the situation where over time people get better at using the kiosk. And much like lines to get subway cards (something replaced by kiosks in Boston long ago), if you get stuck behind someone who is really slow at using it there are usually more kiosks you can move to.

It worked in...

- Subway systems

- Self checkout at grocery stores

- Bank ATMs

Especially that last one. Pretty much the only time I use an actual teller at an ATM is if I need a cashier's check.

I think in fast food it is a bit of a foregone conclusion.

eitally2• 10 years ago

Talking to a person is antagonistic to new users and non-native speakers, especially at restaurants (In-n-Out I'm looking at you!) where the printed menu doesn't contain all the available items. McD's had this problem, too, when they switched to all day breakfast but didn't have menu boards that could show both breakfast & lunch/dinner items concurrently.

5555624• 10 years ago

I think it depends on the situation. Perhaps in a true fast-food restaurant, like McDonald's, it might not be quicker. On Wednesday, I stopped at a Sheetz -- a chain of gas stations/convenience stores in the U.S. -- where I ordered a sandwich. It was all done on a touch screen. I picked the sandwich, bread, toppings, condiments via pictures. I was able to add fries or onion rings to the order. It was the first time I had ever done this and it was a clear picture-based interface. When it was placed, out popped a receipt. while my sandwich was being made, I took the receipt to the counter with the cash registers -- for the whole place, not just food orders -- the scanned the bar code on the receipt and I paid. The person taking the money did not have to take my order and was able to handle other customers not ordering food.

Avernar• 10 years ago

I can see how this could reduce error, but I think this has more to do with cutting costs than adding efficiency to the ordering process.

After using the touche screen at McDonalds only the first time was a little slower than going to the human. Now I can punch in my order super quick. As an added bonus I've seen the staff deliver the order to a person's table instead of being chained to a register.

Wish the Wendy's here in Canada would implement that soon. The human keeps try to rush through parts of the order. They're already asking about my drink when I haven't yet got the chance to tell them to hold the disgusting new pickels and red onions. Then it's the same conversiation about me not wanting to substitute fries for an extra item I ordered. Yes, I want them both.

Plus the fact that Wendy's here almost always has only one person on register unless it's exactly lunch or dinner time. And then they usually only have two registers anyways. During less busy times there usualy isn't anyone at the register and you have to wait for them to show up. So they've already cut costs on not having a dedicated register person.

throwaway2016a3• 10 years ago

That's a good point about language barrier. Whenever I'm in a country that doesn't speak English a primary language, ordering is always a chore and usually involves pointing at menus. And that is even with most countries I have been to everyone has at least a passing knowledge of English. I can't even imagine what it is like when someone is trying to order in the US where most of the population only speaks English.

makecheck• 10 years ago

Yep. These would be faster than human beings even if the cashiers heard your order perfectly the first time. Sadly, more often than I’d expect, they would not. It’s like they have a series of questions in their head and they like to ask those questions regardless of what you say, e.g. I say “number 1 combo TO GO” and still they say “for here or to go?”.

eitally2• 10 years ago

The combo KFC/Taco Bell restaurants have had digital ordering kiosks for years ... so does the Sheetz gas station/deli ... the local Char-Grill chain uses old fashioned paper order slips that you drop in a slot ... and there are plenty more. Self-service ordering is not innovative in the least, and there's no reason it shouldn't be the dominant mode in short order dining.

ourmandave• 10 years ago

When will they catch up with Taco Bell who has order ahead and pay on their phone app?

baron816• 10 years ago

They should use a chatbot so no one has to download an app. I don't want a Wendy's/Taco Bell app on my phone.

cmdrfred• 10 years ago

Or you know a webpage, why is everyone so scared of the browser?

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

Not everyone has a smartphone, or wants to install and give permissions to a different application for every business they might visit.

spriggan3• 10 years ago

Happening everywhere in the world, cashiers replaced by automatic cash registers the client need to operate himself in supermarkets, self-service kiosks at MacDo, even in a french bakery I saw one...

nsxwolf2• 10 years ago

The more I use the "automatic" checkouts at the grocery store the more I am convinced they are for suckers. They just shift a ton of labor onto me and aren't any faster. Employee intervention is required for many steps (alcohol purchases, system thinks you didn't bag the right item, receipt tape runs out, etc).

Soon the machine will start handing you a mop and telling you there's a cleanup in aisle 4.

mcphage2• 10 years ago

The more I use the "automatic" checkouts at the grocery store the more I am convinced they are for suckers. They just shift a ton of labor onto me and aren't any faster.

Many years ago, stores as a whole would have employees who you told what you wanted, and they'd get it for you. When they switched to stores where you collect your own items, many of the same things were true—they were shifting work onto the customer, and weren't faster. However, they allow that work to be done a lot more in parallel (since there are lots of customers picking out their own items), and let customers have a lot more control over what they bought and how much they paid. So overall, they were a plus, and very few stores these days require you to place an order with the people working there.

neillyons• 10 years ago

Ordering via a machine is quite common in cheaper Japanese restaurants in Japan. I think it is a hygiene law where staff who touch money can't prepare food so the customer pays at a machine and hands the staff the meal tickets.

nsxwolf2• 10 years ago

So you touch your money, then you touch the ticket with the hands that touched the money, then they take the ticket and prepare the food with the hand that took the ticket that touched the hand that touched the money?

umeboshi• 10 years ago

Why is this so groundbreaking? I recall Arby's of all chains, testing this out in 1993-94 in Florida, it was like an airport kiosk touchscreen that you ordered thru.

omilu• 10 years ago

Japan has had this for ages, a vending machine takes your money, you select what you want, take the printed receipt to the chef and they cook your food. Works great.

wink• 10 years ago

Fun story. I was at the Madrid airport a while ago and did exactly this: used a kiosk in a McDonald's to order my stuff - hooray for no more language issues (my Spanish is really bad, I was tired, and the kiosk was something new I hadn't seen anywhere).

When my order was ready - what did they do? Call out the numbers - in spanish, and not with a very clear/easily recognizable/slow pronunciation. Plan foiled.

In the end I did get my meal by asking if I had understood the called out number correctly, but unless you also solve some other problems, this is not as perfect as it sounds ;)

Overtonwindow• 10 years ago

Unpopular opinion: I've been advocating for order kiosks in fast food establishments for 10 years. Why? Language barriers, and order accuracy. I think having A kiosk for those who wish to order in any language, or to improve accuracy, should be allowed. I hate to see the day that all workers are replaced by kiosks, but I am pulled by the idea of less barriers to ordering.

Wendy's plans to replace workers with self-service kiosks

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