Not Quite What They Expected

We went by Jack-in-the-Box today to get a quick bite of lunch, because we were out running errands and our daughter really wanted some J-Box food (they don't have J-Box in Atlanta, you see). I should probably explain that the kids are in town for a visit, and we've all gone to Apple Valley, California to see the in-laws. There was a Jack-in-the-Box on the way back to their house, and we pulled through the drive-through window for some take-out...

It was the first time I had been to a J-Box since they started their "We Won't Make It Until You Order It" promotion, and I had actually been wondering how it would work with the drive-through operation. Well, today we found out. Frankly, I don't think the company had thought this one all of the way through before they launched it...

After we placed our order and drove around to pay for it, they asked us to pull into the parking area in front of the building while they cooked our food. This allowed them to keep taking orders (and money) without having us blocking their driveway. We settled into the parking lot with five or six other carloads of drive-up customers and prepared to wait...

It wasn't actually all that long to wait, but it seemed like forever, what with the High Desert summer heat (102 in the shade) and the fact that they got our order wrong and we had to wait while they remade it. Which is exactly what I was worried about, in fact. The big problem with this promotion is that the heart of any fast food operation is convenience, and waiting around in the parking lot while your order is being cooked isn't what you would normally call convenient...

I'm sure it seemed like a good idea in the conference room at Headquarters when the Marketing department presented it. Jack-in-the-Box has been using a "High Quality" strategy for years; attempting to position their products as the best available by the (admitted low) standards of their industry. What could be better than shedding the most entrenched negative image of fast-food operations: pre-made food waiting in a bin under a heat lamp (often for hours at a time) before you get it? Unfortunately, marketing personnel are often a bit disconnected from the realities of the firm's operations, and in this case I have to ask if the marketing people had ever seen an actual Jack-in-the-Box restaurant before they launched this particular promotion...

The change in food preparation doesn't require any major changes to the restaurant, although I expect ripping out the warmers and adding more grill or fryer or preparation space would have been helpful, and hiring more cooks would be important on busy shifts. Nor would the customers dining in the restaurant be affected, particularly. But changing traffic control (or "customer control" as it is sometimes called) procedures for the drive-up window would require lengthening the drive-through lane, dramatically speeding up the rate at which food can be cooked, or asking people to pull out of the drive through and cool their heels in the parking lot -- only the last of which is really possible. And this is where the "We Won't Make It" promotion falls flat...

I don't have any easy answers for this problem, either. Rebuilding all of the company's retaurants seems prohibitive, and there is no way to cook food any faster than they are already doing it. But backing off from the promotion would be disasterous, costing them thousands of sales in lost prestige and giving the competition the chance for a field day. On the other hand, I think we can all learn from this example: the next time Marketing comes up with a brilliant new promotional campaign, you might want to ask the operations people if they think they can make it work. And if at all possible, ask some of the operations people based down near the pointy end what they think of the concept...