Fast Food UX
We usually go to Wendy’s for drive thru meals about 1x per week. Friday is pizza nights, and on any of the other 4 nights of the week — we may pull the chute, and say hey…. “Its a Wendy’s night!”
Happy faces all around and cheers to mom & dad!
Parents of the year? Possibly.
Now let me quickly level set. I understand we are not talking fine dining, which is one of the reasons why this topic fascinated me. Getting a great meal with an expensive price tag seems easy. The challenge is finding a really good meal for a fraction of the cost.
Why Wendy’s?
Proximity : along with Mcdonald’s, Pizza Pizza, Subway & Dominoes
Price : reasonably decent meal for $20 (for 4 ppl)
Product : choices and healthier options
Promotion : likey equal with the other options in the area
Another big reason we go to Wendys’ is the option of the baked potatoes.
In this world of FB, Twitter and Instagram and hyper-conscious health…the option to cutout fries is a good one.
So, the kids meal is exactly the same order every time — one cheeseburger, fries and frosty, one regular burger, fries and frosty. Nothing special. But those darn colorful cardboard boxes and 10 cent plastic toy, excites them, and brings them back each time we ask — “What do you guys want to eat tonight?”
It’s not that Wendy’s even has a better burger. They are very close to Mcdonald’s, and actually have more calories and sodium (Research here). If cornered, blindfolded and forced to eat one of each — I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
A bad experience with fast food? Imagine that!
I took the kids one night in a pinch (of laziness on my part) and got our standard order. All good. But all not good…got home and tried my spicey chicken combo with baked potatoe and it went downhill quick.
Old saturated chicken in deep friend batter — gross. Baked potatoe without sour cream #blasphemy.
So being the dad of the year candidate that I am — I made sure the kids were happy with their meals, which they were….then I noticed on the outside of the paper bag — a talk to Wendy’s web address.
I decided to see how the UX of a complaint might work (I love my field!). I went to their site and filled out the form.
Customer Feedback
The actual form itself isn’t very well designed, but it accomplishes the goal — and that is to take feedback from a customer, contextually, and dynamically present other questions based on those answers. So the information collected is relevant, topical and appropriately directed.
I sent in the form, and thought nothing of it, merely doing some UX/CX market research.
I was pleasantly surprised to get a response within the hour — from the General Manager of the franchise, offering a complimentary replacement meal. Wow — I was very impressed.
I am curious what the response rate is for other fast food companies. Elon Musk even responds directly to customers via Twitter, even going so far as to take suggestions or options on their cars and plan their implementation.
There are 354 Wendy’s franchises in Canada and over 6500 outlets worldwide.
For Wendy’s to route the email through to the right restaurant chain owners, GM’s, Managers and come back with a response within the hour — is most impressive. Next time I’ll have to check to see their Twitter response time! :)
It doesn’t even matter what the response or compensation was — I was impressed with the speed with which it was dealt with.
About a week later, when picking up the replacement meal — I told one of the drive thru workers of my experience (a very brief — 20 second version) and he was very happy to help and pleased to hear of my satisfaction. He mentioned that the managers have to address/ rectify any complaints right away. That sounds like a demanding and strict policy, but in the end — it benefits us, the consumers.
Fast food quality debate aside, kudos to Wendy’s to hearing the voice of the consumer, loud and clear.