Pulled From Comments.

Hi - I don't have the time or energy right now to post something new - see the comment thread under "Challenge" to see where this came from, but here is some of my insight and thoughts on a McDonald's restaurant.

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the only value that customers have to McDonald's is that of the customer of any business - profit.

Every procedure and policy put into place in a McDonald's restaurant is designed by McDonald's corporate (based on billions of dollars spent (possibly trillions) and hundreds of thousands of man-hours utilized (possibly millions)) in attempting to develop the best way to run a McDonald's.

There is no point to opening a store on any day other than to provide impressive service to customers, deliver on QSC&V, so that each customer who comes in that day is much more likely to come in the very next day and spend more money.

However, that is a short focus. There can be no qualified level of QSC&V delivered out of an untrained group of individuals working together. Without each and every employee at a McDonald's - from the guy on the grill, to maintenance, to the Front Counter crew, to the O/O - dedicated to delivering QSC&V, there is no customer service. I say dedicated, not willing. There also has to be a team spirit - human beings are easily manipulated into giving their all (i.e. becoming dedicated) when they feel a great cause to be dedicated to - when there is leadership and teamwork and their contribution is acknowledged.

Most McDonald's, from my perspective as a frequent customer of many McDonald's restaurants across the nation (I've been to McDonald's in every state east of the Mississippi except Florida and Maine), McDonald's are run by underpaid, undertrained people who see their job at McDonald's as a bandage, to stop the immediate pain of unemployment and destitution. However, now and again, there are those old timers who also see it as "what they've been doing since they were 15", and it just is their job. Also, there are an even smaller number of people who see it as a potential career. There's lots of growth to be had in a McDonald's, and the way to grow a store's volume and return visits is by ensuring that crew are dedicated to delivering QSC&V, ensuring all proper procedures are in place, and having the best trained, most accurate employees in the most important positions (Aces in their Places baby). See above to find out where that dedication comes from, friend.

A McDonald's restaurant is about customers, sure. But it's also about 24/2 (Why do we stock 24/2? So that customer orders aren't interrupted during a busy service time so an employee can go stock something that is desperately needed and absolutely not stocked).

It's all about cleanliness - I personally have boycotted at least 20 different fast food restaurants in the areas I've lived in during the past years of my life because I went in at some point and could not find a single clean table - or there was trash on the floor - or there was overflowing garbage - or the bathroom was dirty. I know many, many other people are the same way.

It's all about the procedures (every single fucking one of them) that McDonald's lays out for each and every facet of operations - because those procedures help guarantee: trained crew, fresh product, safe product, cleanliness, speed of service, reduced waste, or improved customer service. All of these effect the bottom line heavily in a McDonald's restaurant.

As for customer service, I'm not in any way inexperienced in customer service. For 2 years I worked at McDonald's as a youth, for 2 years I worked at Burger King as management (my job was to make 12 stores clean, trained and improve general operations including service), I owned and operated my own business for two years that was a direct-to-customer sales business: service was all I had, and I worked for 3 years in other various retail businesses where customer service was my primary focus. For the two most recent years of my worklife I was a telephone salesman - the only way to sell anything on the phone is to be a god of service and I had a rightful place in that pantheon. I have my chops in customer service, and in fact building rapport with people is one of my strongest abilities.

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XOXO