Comment by Denzel
2 days ago
> It's that we're paying more for objectively worse service than we had a decade ago.
> I'm not asking for magic, I'm asking where went the reliability we already had, at the prices we're already paying.
My god thank you! My partner and I have been talking about this for the past 2 years in the context of food service and delivery service industry.
Greater than 50% of all our restaurant orders are straight up wrong or missing items, whether it’s from local places, chains, or fast food restaurants.
The unreliability is staggering, especially because we’re paying so much more!
It’s gotten so bad that we’re done with certain services and establishments for good now, or we make sure to QC before leaving the restaurant to ensure everything is in the bag.
Even more ironic, this happened a couple weeks ago at Texas Roadhouse — the same restaurant I worked in decades ago as a teenager, so I remember the process we had to go through for to-go orders.
First, we’d take the order over the phone. We’d repeat the order back to the customer to confirm everything (1st QC). When the food came up in the window, we’d pack the food in bags, crossing off every item on the receipt before stapling it to the bag (2nd QC). When the customer came to pick up their food, we’d have to take every box out of the bag, show the customer the food, and confirm that everything they expected in their order was there (3rd QC).
No customer. Every left. With an incorrect order. Simple.
That process is gone now. We paid more and came home missing my partner’s meal. Wtf.
I hear a lot of stories like this; but the question I always come back to is - what incentive is their to discard the working system? In your case its the 3qc step process, why is that just gone now?
The more I look into these systematic changes the less sense it makes.
I don't know anything about Texas Roadhouse but in general I'd say a lot of processes got sloppy after technological changes repeatedly added complexity.
Decades ago, when OP worked there, I'm guessing Texas Roadhouse only took takeout orders over the phone and in person, and didn't receive that many. It was less common to order takeout from sit-down restaurants. There was one procedure, the steps made logical sense, it could be implemented entirely within the restaurant without a lot of IT. And it worked, and it probably didn't take that much staff time on a normal night.
Now, you can still order by phone, but I see you can also at least order online for pickup, order via UberEats for delivery, and order via DoorDash for pickup or delivery. They've likely added these various modes over time, and I'm sure each has its own subtly different procedure reflecting various IT systems nobody in the restaurant has any control over.
The three-part QC process might still work for phone orders but those are probably rare. Orders picked up by the actual end customer could use a two-part QC process, verifying the items against the receipt and presenting them for visual inspection. But orders getting picked up by a delivery person can practically only get a quick check as they're loaded in the bag, because the delivery person is in a hurry and won't want to stand there and help check the receipt against what's in the bag. They also may not be able to effectively do so if they don't know the menu (for instance, there are several sides that could be "steamed vegetables" at a quick glance https://www.texasroadhouse.com/location/457-countrysideil/di...) and aren't sufficiently fluent in English.
Rather than have a complex flowchart for the overworked staff maximizing QC for every case, it's very easy to default to the minimum which works in every case, which is hurriedly comparing the menu items that come out of the kitchen to what's on the receipt as they're loaded into the bag. It's very easy to get this wrong, especially if you're overworked and distracted and loading multiple bags at once.
It’s more expensive labor (for the same quality) and fewer redundant staff. I suspect demographics trends are part of the reason.