Black Friday at the Sangertown Square McDonald's

The Sangertown Square Mall (New Hartford, NY) is THE place to shop in Oneida County - especially on Black Friday. The McChronicles spent a little time observing the activity at this restaurant, trying to see how they were handling this special day, and this special opportunity.

Kudos:

• The crew was well-staffed up (we were there around 3PM). There were many more people than we are used to seeing working behind the counter , and they did keep the line down.
• The crew was wearing special red "Happy Holidays" tee-shirts. Kind of festive and fun.

Missed Opportunity:

• As we watched the crew going about their business, and as we noticed that the mall was much busier than usual, we wondered what McDonald's had done to take advantage of this once-a-year special day. It appeared that, beyond staffing up to be able to process more customers per hour, nothing special was happening. We couldn't help but wonder how much more business they could have had, or how much they could have enhanced their brand/image had they done something special.

Now, we don't know what it takes to manage a McDonald's and we imagine it must be pretty tough. But we also know that there are precious few opportunities to make something special happen. Goals might have been to increase their share of all food sold in the mall's food court, to bolster their brand/image in the hearts of their community & customer base, etc. Specific activities could have included offering a package check service for holiday shoppers so they could enjoy a meal without having to manage their bags, sponsoring a local school caroling event, or they could have given out free "buy 1 get 1" coupons for french fries or something.

As fans of McDonald's, The McChronicles would have loved to see the company seize this opportunity to take a step forward.

Image: The McChronicles

The McChronicles: A blog about, not affiliated with, McDonald's.