The crazy things we do. Measuring for measurements sake.
Justin King November 23rd, 2008
I am fascinated by stupid things that companies do for “policy” sake.
A couple of months ago I went through a McDonald’s drive thru. There was quite a long line of cars behind me, so when I pulled up to get my food, and the fries weren’t ready, they asked me to pull up and wait for the balance of my order. I had no problem with this and I am sure the people behind me appreciated this as well. 2 cars got their orders and pulled around me before I got my order hand delivered to my car in 3 – 4 minutes. On a side note, either they forgot about me, or people are really getting McDonalds without fries??
A couple of weeks later, I had the same experience except this time there was no one else in line. After informing me that my fries were not yet ready, they asked me to pull up. I was surprised, and turned around to make sure no one was behind me. There wasn’t. I couldn’t figure out why they made me pull up to wait for food, when there was no one behind me.
It bothered me, so I called up a friend of mine who owns a couple of McDonalds franchises. After I explained the situation, he understood exactly what I was talking about. He explained to me that there is a timer that starts when you place your order and stop when your car pulls through the Drive Thru. Every month your franchise is actually measured on your average Drive Thru times. If you exceed a certain amount of time, you get audited. So, to get around that they have their customers pull up even if there is no line. I think what bugged me the most is that by having me pull up originally they weren’t trying to be *nice* to the line.
{ Sometimes, when we overemphasize elements in our
marketing programs, they start to defy common sense}
Sometimes measurements become obsolete – and sometimes we are just measuring things for measurements sake. When we talk about things like conversion, don’t measure it because a book told you or because you think you should. Measure them because they make sense and because they meet an objective that you have set. Conversion is an excellent element to track and measure, but don’t let corporate policy, or the latest trend override your common sense. Create balance in your programs.
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