McDonalds and KFC do "bill first, eat later". I think it's harmful to their business.

In some shops you have to buy a coupon in one counter and then give that coupon in another (or the same) counter to get your stuff/food. I am not sure if there are survey results that support this type of customer experience, but personally, I think that the two step process is lengthy and harmful to business. Let me tell you what I mean when I say it is “harmful to business”.

I go to a restaurant. I go with the intention of eating a good meal, so, I buy a coupon for that. So far, so good. But then, I am (almost) always undecided after a full meal as to whether I am full or not; that is, I think I can have something more; may be an extra desert or an extra drink. But I don’t feel THAT strongly about getting the extra food that I will follow the two step process to get it (given that, there is always a line at the coupon counter). All in all, the restaurant could have billed me for an extra desert/drink but it didn’t.

Broadly, you can have two categories: eat first, bill later or bill first, eat later. There might be many guys like me who are undecided after the meal J; If you are a restaurant business owner and you do this two step process in your shop, do rethink. I think one should give the service and then get paid for it (just like we get our month’s salaries at the end of the month).

PS: There might be a lot of use cases for this two step process. I am not saying it’s useless, as a matter of fact, this “bill first, eat later” process is so popular that McDonalds and KFC have it in their restaurants. I am just saying that it can be harmful to your business.