Des Plaines, Illinois- Remember driving up to the pumps and getting full service with a smile from "the Man with the Star", going to a restaurant and being treated to a bit of friendly conversation with the waitress, and generally receiving good, neighborly customer service?

"The concept known as customer service has been proven by feasibility studies to be very cost ineffective," says McDonald's Associate Vice CEO Bob "Tubs" Turner. "Nowadays, it's a whole new ball game. We train our managers and swing managers to simply dump the customer's change on the counter or in their hand and turn their backs on them without a word of gratitude for their patronage. We've found that saving that one half to three quarters of a second it takes to say Thank You, projected over a period of a decade, saves approximately 2,104.3 man hours per franchise that could be better utilized in customer turnover."

McDonald's, while proud of this finding, is not alone. Other fast food franchises and so-called mega-stores like Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot, have since discovered the fiscal value of ingratitude.

Says Taco Bell's President of Customer Service Timothy Hanson, "Think of how infernally uncomfortable most fast food franchises are. The air conditioning is turned up even in January so the customer turns blue, the seats are as hard as titanium, and the general attitude of our people is that once we get your money, we want you out ASAP to make room for more customers. Why do you think we hire so many Indians and Hispanics? They're less likely to interact with the customer."

Joe Cabral, manager of a Marlboro, Massachusetts Dunkin' Donuts, concurs. Cabral recently made national headlines with his termination of three employees who were caught actually conversing with the customers after their purchases.

"It was a very untenable situation, to say the least. I couldn't afford to let that go on. I mean, next thing you know, talking to the customer leads to them getting comfortable, then they stay, which retards turnaround. Why do you think we banned smoking in all our restaurants? It's not a public health thing. We don't want them hanging around enjoying their coffee and reading the paper after the sale."

McDonald's Turner agrees.

"This is our primary reason for recruiting from the Special Olympics. They're practically a breeding ground for future McDonald's associates and managers. Sure, they can't always understand the subtle difference between one and two hamburgers but, thanks to Joe Pesci, people expect to get fucked over at the drivethru. The more undesirable the help, the less likely that the customer will be caught loitering during their meal."

But what of the ones who don't appreciate being treated like loose pubic hair? "The customers don't want conversation, they don't need an insincere Thank You. I mean, look at the acne-scarred kids that we hire- Are they the kind of people with whom you'd wish to be engaged in conversation? I didn't think so."

Customer service, while wistfully recalled by those of us old enough to remember the gas attendant who wiped our windshields and checked the oil, are resigned that this is the wave of the future.

"I've been coming to the same McDonald's at least five times a week," says 40 year old Mike Hernke of Dayton, Ohio. "I work at the Texaco next door and have dropped, I estimate, $11,000 here in the last eight years. I think I was thanked twice and told once to have a nice day, but that was said in Spanish by a trainee. One time, I waited 25 minutes on line again because they gave me a garden salad instead of the Big Mac meal that I ordered. They angrily insisted that the computer couldn't be wrong, that I must've told the associate 'garden salad' instead of 'Number One meal without cheese and a Sprite.' On reflection, they could be right but I don't think so."

The emphasis on customer disservice, while irksome and even insulting to some who remember friendlier days, isn't the only tactic designed to facilitate turnover.

"This is a serious issue and must not be addressed on a mere unilateral basis," Turner tells us. "Consider the animated videos we make and play at the counter. Now, you know that we don't make those 45 minute-long commercials for their entertainment value. The kids mainly think that they're lame and parents plainly hate them almost as much as Barney and make them want to take their meals with them. In fact, we even have a character who looks like Barney- the big, purple, amoeba-like thing that looks like a malformed Concord grape.

"Hell, look at Ronald McDonald. Is that the kind of guy you'd want near your kid in one of our playgrounds? Ronald looks like a cross between Michael Meyers (the serial killer of HALLOWEEN fame) and Lucille Ball. He's designed to scare the shit out of little kids. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, it doesn't work. So this spring, we're going for a John Wayne Gacy/Pogo look. We've already done a trial run in some of our Illinois franchises and many parents who still remember Gacy have run out screaming on seeing Willard Scott dressed as Pogo. It looks promising. Location shooting with the New Look will start in three months."

"It's not easy attracting and alienating customers at the same time," concludes "Tubs" Turner. "It's hard work and requires split second timing. Keeping open only one out of five registers during the lunch rush, however, has proven to be quite effective in maintaining short-term customer loyalty. By the time they get to the register, they have five minutes left in their lunch hour and they've already spent too much time waiting in line to walk out. Also," he adds with a wink, "they're much more likely to take their meals to go, which further frees us up for customer turnover."

Meanwhile, at the hamburger giant's corporate headquarters in Des Plaines, Illinois, plans are underway for shaving even more time from the McDonald's experience, such as:

v Not cleaning the bathrooms and turning them into pay toilets that can be accessed only with McCoins that are earned with successive purchases ("This is an exciting opportunity. A regular customer, spending perhaps $25 to feed a family of five once a week, can earn up to two tokens a month. You can redeem one per visit.").

v Hiring from the local prisons on a proposed McDonald's work furlough program ("They're going to wind up working for us, anyway, so why not give them a leg up before they're mainstreamed?").

v Playing loud rap music so customers dance more than walk, thereby saving time when the line advances six inches every ten minutes ("We expect that this will be especially successful in urban areas. In the Midwest, this will also facilitate turnover.").

v More deliberate mistakes at the drivethru ("Studies have shown that even in cases where a full half of the food is missing, people aren't likely to return and clog the restaurant since they're already about a mile and a half down the road. Cheating the customer also helps offset shrinkage.").

Back to The Daily Tabloid.

Back to index.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think. My email address is Crawman2@Juno.com