In light of the recent opening of several Chick-Fil-A restaurants in Michigan (including Lansing), I was inspired to find an article related to this company and how McDonaldization does or does not affect it. On October 22, 2016, Business Insider published an article online about the quality of customer service at this fast food chain, and how it is influencing other companies to change. In the article - "Fast-food chains like KFC and Arby’s are fixing a big customer service problem - and it's paying off" - Kate Taylor writes that Chick-Fil-A has an increasing number of franchises and growing profits as it expands across the United States. This phenomenon is attributed to the exceptional customer service that people receive from this fast-food chain. Originating in the south, the restaurants provide exceptional service to live up to the standard of "Southern hospitality" that is stereotypically true of the region (Taylor). The quality of service has become a factor that other McDonaldized fast-food chains are using to attract more customers and improve their overall dining experiences. This focus on quality of service is interesting in contrast to the excerpts from George Ritzer's book, The McDonaldization of Society. He argues that in many situations where McDonaldization is present, "the consumer spends an increasingly significant amount of time and energy doing unpaid labor" (72). Chick-Fil-A, to the contrary, may do a bit more work for the customer; on my visit to the Lansing location, employees continually patrolled the busy floors, and offered assistance with cleaning up when we were finished. This more personalized experience counters the often dehumanized, impersonal, and apathetic employees that consumers find in other fast food chains (Ritzer 27). Thus, chains like Arby's and KFC have been working to better train and support their employees both within and without their work lives. Since McDonaldized chains have the feature of calculability in their business models, it means that employees often obtain "little or no personal meaning from their work" (72). Instead of just telling workers what to do, they become "engaged very differently when you're telling them why'" (Taylor). Arby's has seen definitive increases in satisfaction and profits since they implemented these new trainings. In some ways, these programs work against the McDonaldization model; they allow space for individuality and intrinsic motivation within the employees, and create a sense of being appreciated within the customers who return there. While there are many problematic things that these McDonaldized companies still do (industrial-scale agriculture and animal slaughter, promote low-quality, unhealthy foods and large portion sizes, etc.), moving away from a model in which the people involved are dehumanized is an excellent step in the right direction. Works Cited Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society. SAGE Publications, 19 April 2012. Print.
Taylor, Kate. "Fast-food chains like KFC and Arby’s are fixing a big customer service problem — and it's paying off." Business Insider, 22 October 2016. Web.
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