McDonald’s Mobile Ordering App Is Almost Here!

McDonald’s will soon be entering the digital ordering arena with its long-awaited U.S. mobile ordering app. It’s already began testing the mobile ordering and payment app at 29 restaurants in Monterey and Salinas, California this week.

The fast food chain is looking at mobile as a way to win back customers. McDonald’s has experienced four straight years of traffic declines.

Company executive Jim Sappington commented in an interview with Reuters, “We can’t impact the speed or the quality of our food.”

“You get a question of ‘Why did I use the app?’,” Sappington said. “Our focus is to make the overall experience clearly better.”

This means the company is focused on making sure the food that’s delivered is good too.

The app would allow McDonald’s to reduce errors and it would free up employees who could be delivering food to tables or cars that are designate for mobile order pick ups.

Starbucks has had a digital ordering app but it’s faced problems. McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbook commented, “It’s better to be right than to be first to market.”

The pilot test for the app will be expanding to 51 restaurants in Spokane Washington, on March 20th.

McDonald’s app will track a customer’s location in order to ensure that orders are sent to the right restaurant and timed so that food is not left to wilt under heat lamps.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, the app will ask for confirmation and payment before sending the order to the kitchen.

Jim Sappington has planned for multiple pilot tests before rolling out the finished app later. This is to collect customer feedback and work out any issues the app may have.

The final version will also ask customers to choose table service, counter or drive-through pickup, or curbside delivery.

The app will eventually hit nearly all 14,000 U.S. restaurants and some 6,000 others in Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia and China, by the end of 2017.

Disclaimer: We have no position in McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD) and have not been compensated for this article.