Have It Your Way, Faster: McDonald's Pins Turnaround to Personal, Mobile Convenience

Is it just us? Or is the notion that mobile is the solution to every business' problems beginning to sound a bit desperate?

It may come as a surprise to some people, but McDonald's, a company with a demonstrable record of global success, now thinks its problems with declining sales and profits over the past few years are because customers cant get their food fast enough. Or in the exact way they wanted it.

There may be some elements of truth in this. Maybe installing kiosks and  eliminating human workers will speed things up by a few seconds. And maybe ordering by phone is exactly what the next generation of Big Mac munchers was waiting for. And, just to take it one step further, perhaps the ability to personalize your Quarter Pounder will drive sales into the stratosphere.

But we kinda doubt it. Not that we dont doubt Mickey D's employs a lot of smart people and knows how to do market analysis. And yeah, as the company desperately attempts to sell whatever it can to whoever wants it, the drive thru menu has begun to resemble the Encyclopedia.

 It's just that there is ample evidence to suggest that the real issue is a bit more fundamental: the company has let its brand evolve. The problem is that it now stands for selling unhealthy food to poor people. 

The people who eat there love supersize orders of fried and huge burgers with bacon and even the salads with bacon bits and thick cheesy dressing that have more calories than some of the burgers.

There is a market for this food. And many people who dont eat there regularly like to do so occasionally. But unless the value proposition changes fundamentally, that market may be saturated, and not just with fat. JL

Dale Buss reports in Brand Channel:

From what customers can order, to how they order and pay, to the level of service they receive, we have markets already implementing different components of the future experience, from menu customization to self-order kiosks, to mobile ordering and payment.
McDonald's is hoping to regain its past glory with customer-centric tactics, because the brand certainly isn't lovin' its present.
The chain once again posted a monthly decline in comparable-store sales, today reporting a global decrease of 2.2 percent in November sales. Its most dismal performance was in the U.S., with a stunning drop of 4.6 percent in its home market attributed to what McDonald's called "strong competitive activity."
The struggling economy in Europe saw help McDonald's dip 2 percent in that market, while sales plunged by 4 percent in its Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa region.
Understandably, McDonald's CEO Don Thompson didn't dwell on awful monthly performance. In October, explaining a 30 percent decline in McDonald's third-quarter profits, Thompson cited fewer restaurant visits and the continued fallout from its problems with a supplier to the China market.
But increasingly, in an admission that McDonald's woes are more than skin deep, Thompson has been talking about a comprehensive initiative to reshape the company that he's calling the Experience of the Future.

Its overall goal is to deliver a "more relevant McDonald's experience" for all its customers, and it includes what Thompson called "innovations to deliver sustained profitable growth."
The brand's Experience of the Future vision was highlighted in a recent Morgan Stanley investors' conference, where CFO Pete Benson and global chief brand officer Steve Easterbrook talked up how the company plans to turn around its performance by focusing on menu innovation, customer experience, its brand and digital as a way to be more convenient (and relevant) in a presentation.
Benson, at the conference, described it as

a comprehensive concept that integrates consumer-led innovations around our menu, service and digital in order to elevate the entire dining experience and drive greater relevance with our consumers. Our experience of the future builds on the many key investments that we’ve already made to our business, including 'made for you,' reimage the course and free in-store wireless while incorporating the leading edge, point of sale and mobile technologies which we are currently building out across the system. We’re putting the pieces in place and intend to take our restaurants to the next level.

From what customers can order, to how they order and pay, to the level of service they receive, around the world we have markets already implementing different components of the future experience, from menu customization to self-order kiosks, to mobile ordering and payment. Our menu and digital innovations ... are aimed at delivering a more personal, more convenient and more enjoyable visit to McDonald’s. As we focus on our future journey, we are also working to strengthen our business over the short-term by taking actions and driving change especially in our most-challenged markets: the U.S., Germany, Japan and Australia.

Easterbrook elaborated to the Morgan Stanley analysts on how menu, brand and digital are the:

...main drivers behind our McDonald’s experience of the future, delivering more relevant food and beverage offerings, driving greater trust in our brand especially around food quality and transforming our service and convenience through significant digital efforts. There is tremendous runway ahead for us in all of these three areas. So we're seizing on them in a more aligned and consumer-driven manner.

Menu: With our menu it’s about evolving our offerings to be more relevant and in step with where our customers are going. And to be sure, we’re staying committed to our core products which account for roughly 40% of our sales but you’ll also see a greater focus on innovation. As an example we’re working on a new global concepts that many of you know about called create your taste. We’re preparing our Quarter Pounder patty our burger in a new way letting customers chose their own soft drinks and experimenting with digital ordering, table service and other experience enhancements.

Brand: We are meeting the large societal trend for customization and personalization and being in step with how our customers live and what they want from McDonald’s. At the same time we’re focused on building greater trust in our brand especially when it comes to food it’s critical that we move the needle on this. So we’ve taken a stronger approach we’re continuing to evolve our menu in recipe and ingredient changes our customers care about and we’re engaging in a more transparent way with consumers as evidenced by last month’s debut of Our Food, Your Questions here in the U.S. The U.S. launch builds on the success of similar approaches in the UK, Canada and Australia and it’s all about inviting customers to discuss the topics that matter most to them.

We know there is an opportunity to gain greater credibility around our food quality. As a way to keep moving into bigger and bolder areas of our menu much like we did with McCafe when we first improved our drip coffee and then moved into specialty and blended ice beverages. The majority of the consumer dialog with Our Food Your Questions takes place online and social media. ... We’ve answered more than 13,000 questions online, and it’s not just about dispelling the myths we’re also getting a much deeper understanding of our biggest customer issues and how better to address them. So we’re looking forward to a lot more relevant and meaningful engagement with consumers as a result.

Digital: Our final focus area of opportunity is moving from mass marketing to mass personalization and how we’re driving digital to help transform our business. Our global digital vision is to bring an entirely new level of every day convenience and fun to the world, while growing our business and our brand. Our aim is to revolutionize how customers experience us from ordering and paying, to networking and connecting with people.

The area of digital commerce holds huge potential for us with a myriad of ways to make our brand easier to use, build greater loyalty and drive more transactions. Using mobile technology for example we can offer advance ordering to our customers and introduce pick-up as a whole new service option or encourage add on orders at the restaurant level. These are just a couple of the examples of the many ways we’re working on expanding our business through technology.

Thompson had earlier said that this plan includes simplifying ordering, payment and mobile offers as well as reviewing McDonald's structure and how it uses resources to redirect spending toward the proper initiatives, according to the Chicago Tribune.
McDonald's has struggled to find solutions to what seem to be snowballing troubles. It has taken short-term measures such as shuffling and reshuffling its US brain trust, and sniffing around the possibility of running a TV ad during Super Bowl 2015.
Another major effort by McDonald's these days is experimenting with customization of its food in a "Create Your Taste" platform that it has been testing in southern California and now is rolling out to 30 locations in five more states, immediately, and to 2,000 U.S. locations next year as well as in Australia (see demo above).
The idea is to let customers skip the counter and order from kiosks where they can customize everything about their burger, including the type of bun, the variety of cheese and which toppings and sauces they want.

"This is a big deal," Greg Watson, the brand's SVP of U.S. menu innovation, told USA Today. "We are all under some pressure that is coming from the business picture not being where we want it to be."
As its new year-end holiday campaign ("gifting $90,000 in gift cards every day for 21 days with American Express) below states: "Everything's possible."