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The Street
The Street
Colin Salao

McDonald's Latest Move Is Trying to be Helpful, But It's a Little Creepy

McDonald’s (MCD) french fries are one of the most beloved menu items in the fast food world, and now the chain is implementing a new system to ensure they are always served at optimal quality for its customers.

McDonald's is using location services to track when customers are near the the restaurant, then alerting the staff when it's time to begin preparing the order. This move is meant to cut customer wait time and ensure their food is as fresh as possible upon pick up.

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McDonald’s calls the service ‘Ready on Arrival’ internally, according to Restaurant Business. The McDonald’s app provides the restaurant the location of the customer when they are within three minutes of arriving.

Geofencing is the term for this technology, which McDonald’s rolled out in March, that creates a fence around a location.

"While it's still early days deploying this new digital enhancement, initial results are already pointing to improved service times and elevated customer satisfaction scores," McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said in an investor call in April.

Chick Fil-A is also getting in on the location tracking this summer.

The Atlanta-based fast food chain announced earlier this month that it already tested the technology in 100 locations and noticed positive improvements, reducing wait time of customers by 1-2 minutes and improving the accuracy of the estimated wait time given to customers on the app.

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