Marcelo Toledo

startups, empreendedorismo e tecnologia

McDonald’s needs a megaphone?

McDonald’s POS system are pretty simple, they have in their database all products, numbers, sides, with all possible configurations. When you start asking, the gentleman or lady in the cashier start hitting the right spot for what you ask in a touchscreen lcd monitor, whenever they choose something with multiple choice, a sub list appears, for example, when they hit number one, they have to choose the drink you want, and it can be sprite, coke, guaraná, juice, whatever, pretty simple and easy.

Some times I like to ask their top sunday with caramel and since it’s pretty big I like to balance it with extra caramel, the only problem is that the system is not configured with extra caramel, only chocolate and strawberry, but they do have caramel.

Guess what? Every time since the last few years they get stuck with this, either the product comes with the wrong flavor and they need to throw it in the trash or the cashier screams to the other side of the store:

“This extra chocolate is caramel!”

Said that, I have two questions:

  1. How complicated is for someone to add this variable to the system?
  2. We have around 600 stores in the country, how come no one realized this yet?