PHILADELPHIA – Wendy’s and McDonald’s are testing self-service ordering kiosks across the United States, but both QSRs maintain that there is no connection to movements looking to increase the minimum wage for fast-food workers.
“It’s not specifically tied to raising the minimum wage,” Wendy’s spokesman Bob Bertini told PhillVoice.com. “This is primarily driven by consumer demand. Customers, particularly young customers, like to be in control. They’re used to doing iPhones and tablets so they like the convenience of using kiosks. And it does help to mitigate some costs.”
A spokeswoman for McDonald’s told the news source that the kiosk tests are about the customer experience, not labor.
“An assumption that their use is related to wage or staffing levels is not the case at McDonald’s,” said Lisa McComb of McDonald’s. “Staff perform many functions in our restaurants beyond taking the orders, and in those restaurants testing kiosks, there is the ability for some staff to spend more time on hospitality, customer service and other functions. For example, in some restaurants we’re also testing table service, so that might be a function of an employee’s role.
“I can’t speak to whether or not there is any savings related to the use of kiosks,” she continued. “Our lens is all around customer feedback, and whether or not customers like them.”
Bertini commented that Wendy’s self-service kiosk test program began early this year at a handful of Ohio locations, while McDonald’s is testing kiosks in some of its remodeled locations nationwide.
“At this point we’re gathering feedback from customers on their experience with the kiosks, so there’s no specific ‘next step’ per se,” McComb told the new source.
Meanwhile, the leader of a local Philadelphia effort to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast-food workers says she doesn’t consider self-ordering technology to be a threat to employment.
“We focus on customer service,” Shymara Jones of Fight for 15 told the news source, adding that she sees one real downside to the kiosks: “Customers want to see a warm smile. That’s not something these automated services can do.”