News

North Carolina city latest to get McD's ordering kiosks

October 23, 2003

RALEIGH, N.C.--Consumers accustomed to banking at ATMs and paying for groceries with a machine instead of a counter clerk are getting a chance to order a Big Mac and fries the same way.

According to an article on NBC 17 online, McDonald's is testing kiosks that allow fast-food customers to place orders by touching food and drink icons on a computer screen instead of telling a clerk at the register what they want. A recorded voice from the machine prompts them as they make their choices.

Customers pay at the kiosk instead of the register by putting a $1, $5, $10 or $20 bill into the machine. It prints a receipt that the customer takes to a designated register to get change and pick up the order, the article said.

McDonald's has installed the kiosks at six restaurants in the Raleigh area as part of a two-city test of automated ordering, said Darnell Crews, McDonald's field-operations manager for Eastern North Carolina. The other market where the chain is testing the kiosks is Denver, where the machines take debit cards and give change, Crews said. See related stories, "McDonald's still experimenting with ordering kiosks," "Hot and now: kiosks in the fast-food market."

McDonald's is using its touchscreen kiosks near the register counters and in the play areas of selected restaurants in Cary, Durham and Apex, Crews said in the article.

McDonald's theory in testing the machines is not only that they will prove more convenient, but that some people would rather deal with them than with a clerk, Crews said.

He explained that clerks displaced by the machines are reassigned to other duties. He added that the devices might not be faster than a person, but they can reduce the human-to-human miscommunication that all too often turns two cheeseburgers into a double cheeseburger.

It's no small point for McDonald's, which lags its competition in speed and accuracy of handling orders, industry and internal surveys show.