Over the years, we’ve received complaints about inconsistencies with the data and information presented on our site. So we decided to create this page to clear up any misunderstandings and shed some light on our price collection practices.
We also thought it might be helpful to explain why we can’t be 100% accurate – no matter how hard we try.
How We Collect Prices
Here at FFMP we’re a real team of real people. Because of all this realness, it isn’t humanly possible for the five of us to do everything by ourselves. Of course, we spend plenty of time researching, fact-checking, and making sure the data we enter on the site is accurate. But we often need a helping hand along the way.
And this is where our community comes in, guns blazing.
We often use the help of ordinary people – who love fast food just as much as we do – to fact-check everything we put on the site. Our huge network of contributors stretching from the East to the West coast has been a huge help in all the seven years of FFMP’s existence.
Most of our competitors only use computers to make up the data on their sites. But we still believe in the fortitude of human contribution. Nothing would be possible without our community, so you have our sincere gratitude.
How Prices & Hours Are Set At Franchises
Franchising is a method of distributing products and services locally, across a country, or around the world. Franchise brands are very distinguishable (think of the golden arch of McDonald’s). Which leads to customers having certain expectations when they visit different locations that come from the same franchise.
With franchising, a lot of things are predetermined – they share protocols, standards, certain menu elements, branding, the taste of their food, and the look and feel of their restaurants. However, there are some decisions that are left to the owner of the specific location.
Some of these decisions include working hours, pay rates, as well as menu prices.
This is why we can’t guarantee that the working hours and listed prices are 100% accurate. Sometimes owners can change them overnight. This is why we rely so heavily on you guys to give us tips when something in your area changes, so we can stay on top of it.
Why We Can’t Be 100% accurate
With thousands of chains owned by thousands of different people in hundreds of thousands of locations with potentially millions of different items… it’s impossible to make sure we get the prices and hours for every place and item checked by a human. And, of course, location owners can change menu prices and working hours abruptly, so it would be impossible for us to update everything in real-time.
To say we took on an enormous project would be an understatement.
So instead of tracking down potentially thousands of different prices for every. Single. Item… we make generalizations. And generalizations aren’t 100% accurate for every location, obviously. But they’re pretty close most of the time.
Our community is very closely knit and we depend on one another for accuracy. Ultimately, we are responsible for putting up relevant information on the site, of course. But sometimes some things simply slip through the cracks.
Remember how we are humans and not machines? While this method has many ups, it also has its downs. Which is why we hope you can understand why we aren’t always perfect. After all, it’s human to make mistakes.
How We Try To Stay As Accurate As Possible
We try to stay accurate with the help of our community. We urge the people who read our site to provide us with accurate data, should they notice inconsistencies between the provided information on FFMP and the real-world situation. As we said – we try to do this ourselves as much as possible – but this simply isn’t reasonable.
The FFMP team keeps all of the site content updated as much as possible and is on a constant lookout for any news related to the fast-food industry in the US. Even though we can’t guarantee we are 100% accurate, we are confident that you can trust at least 90% of the information disclosed on the website.
So if we’re wrong, reach out to our friendly team and let us know.
