McDonald's Vows to Make Better Burgers to Win Back Customers

usatoday.com/story/money/2017/03/01/mcdonalds-has-plan-win-back-customers/98592246/
>McDonald's executives unveiled plans Wednesday for better burgers, delivery services and more digital-friendly restaurants to return to growth after the loss of "hundreds of millions" of visits by customers who drifted away as the chain fell behind on quality, value and convenience.

>Trading in shares of the fast food giant was halted briefly on Wednesday as executives laid out plans to investors. McDonald's leaders want the restaurant chain to reclaim its spot as a top destination for hungry diners, aiming for annual sales growth between 3% and 5% starting in 2019. Once McDonald's shares resumed trading, investors apparently liked what they heard: the stock price rose 1.1% for the day to close at $129.05.

>The restaurant chain has introduced all-day breakfast, rolled out novelties such as a junior and jumbo-sized version of its iconic Big Mac, and put more of its restaurants in the hands of franchisees. But executives noted that more needs to be done to reverse a trend in which once-loyal customers are bypassing McDonald’s for its rivals.

>“Some of our best customers just aren’t visiting as much as they used to -- and we know why,’’ said Lucy Brady, the company’s senior vice-president for corporate strategy and business development. “Our historical advantages of quality, convenience and value didn’t keep pace . . .We’re making meaningful improvement in our food, particularly our burger and chicken offerings.’’
LOL.

CONTINUED
>More than 3,500 McDonald’s restaurants, primarily in Asia and the Middle East, offer delivery. And with 75% of the population in top markets like the U.S. living within three miles of a McDonald’s restaurant, the company is looking at expanding delivery options, including possible partnerships with services like Seamless.

>The company also wants to do more with the McCafe sub-brand of coffee-based drinks to help turn occasional visitors into repeat customers. In Australia, where there are McCafe baristas, and cafe-like spaces, coffee represents 14% of the business, Brady said.

>McDonald's will continue to roll-out its “experience of the future,’’ eateries that allow customers to order and pay for sandwiches, fries and other purchases at kiosks, rather than a counter, and then have the food delivered to their tables. In the U.S., the upgrades will be in place at roughly 2,500 of its eateries by the end of this year. Most of the nation’s 14,000 restaurants will be revamped by 2020, according to Chris Kempczinski, president of McDonald’s USA.

Can McD's be saved? ..........Should it?

McDonald's charges too much for the crap they serve anyway. I imagine using better quality ingredients will drive the price up higher. Nobody goes to McDonald's for something good. They should focus on putting out better quality dollar menu items, which is why most people go anyway.

I typically go to McDonalds as a last resort when I am literally shaking from hunger/lack of glucose. I don't feel good about eating there and it makes me feel even worse when the food costs too much or when they took too long to make it or when it isn't fresh.

Also they changed the recipe for their chicken mcnuggets without telling anyone. they used to be these fluffy light-brown crunchy textured nuggets that had a bit of thickness to them but now they are this thinner darker colored brown that feels like it has less meat

they actually use so little fucking meat in any of their burgers that it is hard to fathom. look at the mcchicken for example. 14g of protein. FIVE OF THOSE FUCKING GRAMS ARE FROM THE SOY PROTEIN INFUSED BUN. THIS COMPANY IS A FUCKING SCAM GUYS. IT'S LITERALLY AN OUNCE OF CHICKEN MEAT THAT YOU ARE PAYING $1.25 FOR

They can win if they bring back the 90 second rule that they had way back when, that it should be 90 seconds tops from when I order to when I'm eating. Fast food used to be cheap and fast, it is neither anymore in many cases

two words

DOLLAR MENU

it's why Taco Bell is ruling the landscape. Wendys ditched theirs, McDs ditched theirs. we don't want goddamn salads or mccafes or chicken wraps, we want 1 dollar burgers, fries, and chicken sammiches.

Why they have anything except the McChicken™ and variations of the McChicken™ on the McDonald's™ menu, I will never understand.

Their biggest mistake is getting rid of the mascots and changing the whole style of the restaurant, it used to be colorful and goofy, now every McDonalds has those sharp edge interiors with dark gray colors dominating the interior, it makes 0 sense. Bring back the clown, the hamburglar and go after children because that was the main audience they attracted at their peak. If kids want to eat there then inevitably parents will eat there too. I ate McDonalds at least once a week when I was a kid, now I have no recollection of the last time I've been there.

>McDonalds will never automate their production line for cheap, consistently high-quality food made fresh to-order from automated digital self-checkout stands that include an estimated time of completion

This is the kind of revolutionary shit they need to cut costs and increase quality at the same time. Cheaper, better, faster. No more overpriced, sloppily put together sandwiches with hard dried out bread from sitting too long in a heat rack. No more waiting in line for 15 minutes because Shaneequa and Tyrone decided not to come to work today and leave the place perpetually understaffed. No more obsessively checking the bag every time so you don't drive all the way home and realize they forgot half your fucking order. This is the automation we need, perfect robot workers operating 24/7 to give the people what they want.

Hire one friendly clean-cut college-educated white guy to run the place for $15 an hour and let the rest take care of itself.

The current model isn't able to offer low prices like that. I'm sure they would LOVE to but the numbers don't add up. They need to charge more to stay profitable. That's why they're trying to present themselves as a more classy, high-quality place, to justify the raised prices. It's obviously not the right approach, neither was trying to present themselves as an accessible healthy option, that's why they're continuing to fail.

The company's just too big to make the dramatic changes they need to.

Best McDonalds burger I had was in Paris. The quality here is just shit.

To win in the US, they need to go back to basics. Burgers, fries, chicken nuggets and sandwiches, McFish (that isn't six dollars yes please), breakfast in the morning, shakes, flurries and soft serve. Slim your menu, make them cheaper.

Holy fuck I can't get a Big Mac value meal walking away for less than 10 bucks. Might as well go somewhere where the burger is decent.

>That's why they're trying to present themselves as a more classy, high-quality place

How did they not realize this was a horrible idea. McDonalds is just engrained in everyones mind to be some funky ass establishment with cheap ass tasty food, this whole half-hearted hipster shit was such a misfire

I really like the McNuggers though.
10 piece combo with a soda is a flat 1000 calories.

Pretty useful when cutting calories.

If they want their food to be a higher quality, they better be prepared to roll out the fucking robots.

Do you not read food news? Them switching mcnuggets to all natural ingredients was all over the place.

This is the exact same as ESPN thinking they need to show less sports and more pop culture. People don't want quality from McDonalds and people don't want pop culture from ESPN. People just want the old cheap shit that they grew up with.

The problem is that small decreases in price, due to economies of scale, cause HUGE decreases in profit. They're already losing money, they can't afford to make their shit any cheaper. There's no easy way to fix it really.

If they seriously committed to trying out this kind of automation as the first fast food restaurant to do so I think they'd hit gold. Really. Make a high-tech pilot store in some key location with lots of traffic and exposure and just test it out. It would be a massive hit.

>It would be a massive hit.
For real.

No part time hobos touching your food.
Probably have to keep it all clean because people will want to see it making burgers.
It'll look cool.
Food quality will be way more consistent.
It'll look cool.
And throw in some more/better quality ingredients you can afford because you're not paying hobos.

>The problem is that small decreases in price, due to economies of scale, cause HUGE decreases in profit

oh I know and to further that point - someone else brought up Taco Bell leading the current dollar menu and that's only really because they have better margins on their ingredients than McDicks. McDonalds may be able to manage if they just make all their dollar menu items like 10-15% smaller

Fucking THIS.
Really the reason I only go to taco bell and rallys anymore these days.
If you need to use less "quality" ingredients idc but I'm not paying anymore than like $3 or 4 dollars for fucking fast food.
None of this "$2 for $5" bullshit.

a major problem mcdonalds is running into, that a lot of people forget, is that wages haven't kept up with inflation for decades now, and it's starting to catch up. what was a $1 burger in 2000 can be over $2 for the same quality, but people aren't going to go buy a $2 "value" burger when they're only comparatively making 0.40 more.

McDonalds is really in an awkward place that they themselves created by pioneering the dollar menu and marketing themselves as the CHEAP option. An entire generation now knows McDonalds as the place to go for basement bottom price (and quality). And while those low low prices gave them huge market share (coughnignogscough) it ultimately, reduced profits because they got locked into that 1 dollar price point. A price point they themselves created artificially even though the market couldn't sustain it by trying to throw their weight around.

Meanwhile Hardees and Wendys kept banging the Quality and Choice drum, Taco Bell kept banging the 'Dude Weed lmao' drum, and Burger King banged the 'we also exist' drum.

As a result, McDonalds became the ESTABLISHMENT. The top dog. the place where boring people, kids, and poor people went. Because without that low price point there is simply no draw to McDonalds. Nothing they do isn't done better elsewhere, abliet slightly more expensive. Barring maybe fries, which is ironically their lowest profit margin item and if they raise prices on it it will KILL them in Asia.

Automation is their best bet to shed cost and promote fast, friendly, safe (read: no thugs/retards) service, but it's also going to kill them in PR since they're gonna start shedding minimum wage jobs like a sheep dog in summer.

15 dollar jobs? Oh sure, says Mcdonalds. But each store will only be manned by 5 people and a manager and one roaming technician who services a 10 mile radius. The rest of you are fired~ :3

>Nothing they do isn't done better elsewhere,

The fries are still pretty solid, and the nuggers are decent.

I love going to McDonalds for Fries and Fountain Coke, then the only other things I would order are from Value Menu.

McDouble is better than Big Mac, Big Mac falls apart, and it comes in a box...I prefer the wrapped McDonald that I could eat without touching easily. They need to do away with salad and fancy orders that eats into delivery time.

Starbucks and Second Cup already have muffins and cupcakes, in Canada they'll have to compete with Tim Hortons as well as County Style and Coffee Times. I think for bakery items, McDonalds should focus on more pies (turnovers in a box).

Between McDonalds and Tim Horton's coffee, I prefer Tim's while my brother prefer McDonalds. If I was travelling though, I get McDonald's coffee because they have the better lid.

Taco Bells does this loaded wrap that is basically chilli cheese fries in a wrap, McDonalds should try that, no lettuce, but like McDonalds in wrap form something easy to prepare so it's fast, and in a form that is easy for people to eat while walking or in their car.

It's not that comfortable to eat in a McDonald's restaurant, I couldn't relax yesterday as there was hoodrat with sagging pants slounching around, it's gross because I think his underwear might have touched the seat!

Regional chains do fries better at the same price.

I'd rather go to Whataburger for very similar fries, except Whataburger doesn't pay minimum wage and has stricter quality control on their fries.

>Slim your menu, make them cheaper.
THIS.

I went to a Chinese run sushi buffet a month ago. Some of the items were actually delicious, but many were gross, tasted stale - the cause of this is that their menu is as thick as a comic book. With that many items, even when the restaurant is always full, some are not going to be ordered as often and their ingredients will go bad. Not to mention different chefs have different specialties, if a chef good at a certain dish leaves, and no other chef can do the dish as good, they should have dropped the dish.

They need to create a 50 calorie burger or something. Science their way out of this.

but Mac Dons is objectively better than every other place you mentioned

As a poor white nigger this.

I usually pick mcdonalds when I want fast food because cheap.

The only reason I say fuck that most of the time Is the "WHUT?? HUH? SPEAK UP SLOW DOWN REPEAT DAT" only to fuck up the whole order.

>Barring maybe fries, which is ironically their lowest profit margin item and if they raise prices on it it will KILL them in Asia.
How can their fries, of all menu items, be the lowest margin order? Potatoes have to be cheaper than buns, meat, cheese and green veggies/tomatoes.

What if they started offering All-you-can-eat Fries, but actually for-real unlike at Red Robin?

>Also they changed the recipe for their chicken mcnuggets without telling anyone. they used to be these fluffy light-brown crunchy textured nuggets that had a bit of thickness to them but now they are this thinner darker colored brown that feels like it has less meat

They sort of did mention it when they did the whole switch to """ALL NATURAL""" ingredients in most of their product.

The nuggets got hit the hardest, I think. You're completely right, before they were much lighter in color, much thicker and tasted better in general.

I don't really enjoy nuggers from other fast food places, and usually get tendies at places like Whataburger or Dairy Queen. Wendy's and Burger King completely fucked up their nuggers in the past few years, largely, I imagine, to stay competitive with McDonald's $5/20piece offering. The results suck, they're soggy, chewy and taste both bland and terrible at the same time.

Old school BK nuggets were really quite good, with Wendy's being almost on par.

It's funny, the only thing decent at BK these days is their chicken sandwiches. Their burgers have always sucked.

I dunno, man, I've had McDonald's here in the USA, Holland, France, Guam, Japan, Mexico, Belize...

I always make sure to get the same shit whenever I get McDick's abroad to compare. The quarter pounder tastes just about the same nearly everywhere, though in Holland, they had great dipping sauces.

The fries were best in Japland, though.

I think it's the other way around. Kids'll come in anyways, better focus on other (adult) segments.

We all know what killed McDonalds. This flick is practically a mandatory viewing in public school health classes nationwide and alls it does is paint McDonalds negatively. Kind of unfair they got stigmatized so hard with this because every other fast food joint is just as terrible for you if you overeat

I haven't eaten there since I was a kid.
And I do eat fast food every so often. Every McD's I've seen is just always nearby something that isn't total shit and costs the same.

it fell behind because they raised their prices.

You can make crappy food or you can make expensive food, you can't do both.

Pretty terrible they gave millions of people cancer instead of a decent meal

what?

FOR ME

>tfw will never have super sized fries ever again

>How can their fries, of all menu items, be the lowest margin order?

They're not, he's talking out of his ass. Fries are near the top of the margins, behind only something like sodas.

They took a loss on McDoubles/Double Cheeseburgers when those were still on the dollar menu. Probably still take a loss on those desu.

To add - there's a reason they always asked if you wanted to "supersize" everything before came out. Fries and drinks are the highest margin items.

Iced tea is probably the highest margin item. Iced tea in fast food places is like >90% profit

I miss my 5 McChickens for $5
Now I'm thin

good.

their fucking garbage food isn't even worth a dollar and 'big' mac combo should be about 4 bucks, not fucking 8

i'm only 36 and i remember getting cheese burgers for less than a dollar each.

they also need to start using beef tallow again for fry cooking.

This man has the answer
They fucked up when they raised the McDouble above a dollar, and they keep doing it

"salads that eat up into order time"
Salads are premade and it takes about 10 seconds to chop up the chicken that goes in there. There's nothing fancy that takes a long time to assemble at McD's. The only thing that'll hold up the line are people who just order a lot of shit.

Want to increase your customer base? Bring back the old school happy meal boxes that have games and pop out sections on them. Bring back the good toys, like the collectible 101 Dalmatian snow globes and race cars. I want to be able to poke out the cardboard ramp from the happy meal box and launch my toy car from it.

Go back to the pink goo mix for the meat. If that's what it takes to bring back the dollar menu, so be it. Public outcry will last a month, tops. Your true customer base will thank you.

Also, bring back the fucking mcrib. I will gladly pay double if it means not having to wait three years for one.

They're not gonna win back the middle class in most of the domestic market after decades of being the poster child for what ignorant people eat.

>It's funny, the only thing decent at BK these days is their chicken sandwiches. Their burgers have always sucked.

Yeah, I usually get their original chicken sandwich.

Their burgers are OK - but the Whopper is basically the equivalent of the Big Mac (too expensive for what it is) so it's a poor value overall. The rodeo burgers are OK. They used to be $1, I don't know how much they are now