“A Hamburger With 4 Pickles And A Small French Fries With No Salt”

I went to the McDonald’s located on 28th street around Baruch College for lunch on April 20, 2009. I felt uncomfortable because I knew that I would be viewed and treated as an abnormal customer. However, grade is more important to me than my embarrassment. In order to overcome my cowardice, I asked my friend to accompany me to go to the store. When I entered the store, I tried to pick a friendly looking and nice staff to place my order. Finally, I picked the store manager because he seemed approachable and friendly since he smiled and talked politely to the previous customer before me.
However, I was treated totally different from the previous customer. I placed my order, “Can I have a hamburger with exact 4 pickles and a small well-done French fries with no salt?” His face turned to rigid immediately after I asked my request. He no longer smiled and mumbled. I heard he mumbled something like, “all food is fixed, no extra service.” He didn’t look at me and responded me for a while. I felt helpless and was wondering if he was placing my order. Then, I heard he cried out and placed my order. He asked his staff to make the hamburger with exact 4 pickles and a small well-done French fries with no salt. I think there were 3 crews got involved into my order. The first one was the manager, the second one was the crew who made hamburger and the third one was the crew who made French fries. It wasn’t that bad about the time management because it just took a little bit longer to get my order. I got my order in 7 minutes. When the order completed, the manager just handed it to me without saying anything, any facial expression and eye contact. Also, the order was not completed correctly that there is one extra pickle and I didn’t taste the difference between French fries with salt and that with no salt.
I felt so bad about the manager’s reaction. I would rate the staff’s manufacturing process as normal, communication as bad, coordination as normal and customer service as bad. If I were brought in as a consultant to McDonald’s to help them improve their efficiency, I would give them several suggestions. First of all, the manager needs to be customer-oriented. He shouldn’t feel troubled about client’s additional request. Actually, there is a big difference between the customer service of McDonald’s in Hong Kong and that in New York. I feel the McDonald’s managers in Hong Kong are more helpful that they do not avoid doing more to suit client’s satisfaction. The manager makes me feel like the store is inflexible and I cannot request more beyond the exact menus. Therefore, McDonald will lose its competence. When people want to have a small change on the exact menus, they may avoid going to order from McDonald’s and choose substitute such as Subway instead. In addition, the manager should tell the client how long it takes to get the order done when placing special orders. Because I felt like the manger made me to wait for my special order when he said nothing at all.