Fast food giant McDonald’s announced its largest acquisition in 2 decades by buying a decision-logic technology company for $300 million to enhance and personalize the drive-thru experience. You’ve probably seen decision logic at work when shopping online. When you add Item A to your cart, and an ordering system offers you Items B and C because other customers who purchased Item A also purchased Items B and C, you’ve experienced decision logic.
McDonald’s serves around 68 million people everyday. The majority of those customers place their orders at the drive thru. Currently, when you drive up to place your order at a McDonald’s, a digital display greets you with a handful of banner items or promotions. As the ordering line progresses, you eventually get to the full menu. Both the digital display and menu, are largely static, aside from obvious changes like rotating in limited time offers, or switching over from breakfast to lunch.
However, the new technology quickly uses algorithms to crunch data and response to diverse events such as the weather, time of day, local traffic, and of course historical sales data. The system can then display and offer customers promotions and potential upsells based on that information.
McDonald’s is testing the new system at a restaurant in Miami and should expand the pilot program to 1,000 locations by mid summer, eventually rolling out to the company’s 14,000 US restaurants and beyond.
Sintel Systems offers complete omni-channel solutions such as the Direct-to-POS online ordering platform. This system allows restaurants of all sorts to have a custom, secure website and mobile app to support customer ability for placing orders on the go. Using our omni channel approach customers can order with an employee using a hand held device at busy drive thrus, order from a kiosk, order from their phone or order from a computer. If they prefer, they can even order inside the restaurant from staff at the counter. All transaction from devices are seamlessly sent to the kitchen display system (KDS). Kitchen staff stays completely in the know of customer orders and what order to cook them in. That’s the goal of omni channel POS, service is provided to the customer where they want it, how they want it.
