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Indeed. We have had these things in Europe for a long time already. They tend to be really convenient when you are in a foreign country, since you don't need to

Indeed. We have had these things in Europe for a long time already. They tend to be really convenient when you are in a foreign country, since you don't need to be able to speak to them, you just press the buttons, and get what you want, without fear of the order getting "lost in translation". And given that they are in use in thousands of restaurants in Europe, then you know that the price per machine is only going down, not up. Which means that at some point they will _always_ end up price competitive with humans, unless the humans also keep on accepting wage cuts to stay "competitive". Forcing people into sub-poverty incomes is not a viable long term solution to this problem of low paid labour.

dogma1138 10y ago
One of the reasons you see these in Europe is because of high employment costs (and I don't mean minimum wage alone, that one isn't particularly high in Europe). These things are pretty common in the UK, but on the other hand in Asia I haven't seen those yet, Hong Kong, China, Philippines don't have them despite having on average huge McDonald's stores with considerably more staff and customers than the average Western European one. It's also worth noting that you can pretty much follow the employment costs in Europe to see where are these things deployed and at any country that is below a certain threshold you won't really see those. Service automation is a simple calculation of TCO of the automation vs wages, as long as the wages are even marginally lower than the cost of automation there is no point. I would say tho that while I visit McDonalds maybe 3-4 times a year (I love their fries, even tho you can't get mayo in the UK anymore... because "health and safety") I much rather use the ATM than talk to the person at the counter. They can't hear/understand half of the things you say, and vice versa, orders are often taken wrong, and you some how always get stuck behind a group of 5 people that can't make up their mind. So all in all they might also get a better customer satisfaction from automated service than from human employees.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  McDonald's in China (at least in some branches in Shanghai) has automated kiosks for ordering. They're similar to the ones they've had in the UK for a while now, except that they have a way to scan a QR code from your phone's screen (commonly used for WeChat and Alipay payments via QR code).

dogma1138 10y ago

One of the reasons you see these in Europe is because of high employment costs (and I don't mean minimum wage alone, that one isn't particularly high in Europe). These things are pretty common in the UK, but on the other hand in Asia I haven't seen those yet, Hong Kong, China, Philippines don't have them despite having on average huge McDonald's stores with considerably more staff and customers than the average Western European one. It's also worth noting that you can pretty much follow the employment costs in Europe to see where are these things deployed and at any country that is below a certain threshold you won't really see those. Service automation is a simple calculation of TCO of the automation vs wages, as long as the wages are even marginally lower than the cost of automation there is no point. I would say tho that while I visit McDonalds maybe 3-4 times a year (I love their fries, even tho you can't get mayo in the UK anymore... because "health and safety") I much rather use the ATM than talk to the person at the counter. They can't hear/understand half of the things you say, and vice versa, orders are often taken wrong, and you some how always get stuck behind a group of 5 people that can't make up their mind. So all in all they might also get a better customer satisfaction from automated service than from human employees.

rahimnathwani 10y ago
McDonald's in China (at least in some branches in Shanghai) has automated kiosks for ordering. They're similar to the ones they've had in the UK for a while now, except that they have a way to scan a QR code from your phone's screen (commonly used for WeChat and Alipay payments via QR code).