Work Sound with Franchisees
The key to effective franchise relationships is trust. And trust flinches with communication. Communicate openly and justly with your franchisees, and be as concerned with their effectiveness as you are with your own. The finest franchisors meticulously provide their franchisees with every day, useful communication, which means more than the chance email, newsletter, or obligatory visit from their field representative. Today, it's all too alluring to depend on the internet for communications. But depersonalizing the franchisor is a giant mistake. Time and again, well-intentioned emails or texts ignite firestorms when they're misconstrued. Don't make the error of believing an email can ancillary for human contact. When your franchisee made the jump, at least part of their speculation was in you. They bought into your capability to help them raise a business. Associations are built with dialogue, so it is vital to encourage dialogue in every aspect of your association with your franchisees. Upright franchisors are careful to generate multiple venues for constructive dialogue. Annual pacts, local meetings, and advisory and publicity councils all offer for this two-way communication. To be actual, however, the communication needs to be more than recurrent. It needs to be authentic. Get jammed in a single half-truth, and you've devastated trust with your franchisees incessantly. Lastly, to be effective, you have to genuinely care about the feat of your franchisees. Good franchisee associations start with a franchisor that is, first and prime, committed to franchisee triumph. That obligation, more than anything else, desires to permeate the franchisor organization at every single level. If your franchisees don't sense your pledge, the relationship can swiftly become adversarial. If, on the other hand, your franchisees see you breaking your back to help them prosper, there's almost nought they won’t do for you. And even worsening franchisees are reluctant to sue someone they certainly like - specifically if that individual has demonstrated an actual commitment to their achievement.
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Following are some endorsements on the finest practices in franchisee communications: • Whenever conceivable, take calls from franchisees rather than letting the calls go to voice mail. • If conceivable (once you've formed a staff organization), have a dedicated franchise backing line where a receptionist answer calls rather than having all calls go into a computerized attendant loop. • If you get a message from a franchisee, always reply the identical business day. Unless the message involves a meek issue, default to calling the franchisee rather than retorting via email. • Each day pick up the phone and call at least one franchisee you haven’t vocalized to in a while. Ask how they’re doing, how their household is, and what else your team could be doing to back their business. • Not ever speak devastatingly about franchisees to an employee in your company. If you or other people on the management team say objectionable things about franchisees in front of other employees, that tells your staff they can do the identical thing. Communications relating to franchisees should always be reverential. • Use a technology platform to trail all communications (e.g., replicas of emails, precise of phone calls) with franchisees. Upholding a record of all communications will offer valuable information to staff members when they concoct to interact with franchisees, and it will be significant should a quarrel ever ascend with a franchisee. • Employ one person in your company as the communications manager, and have all system-wide communications riddle through that person to ensure the steady tone and precision of information. One of the most significant elements to support optimistic communications is the Franchise Advisory Council (FAC). Almost every healthy franchise system has a vigorous advisory council program.
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A moral FAC is: • Usually established by the franchisor • Designed to enable communication between franchisees and the franchisor, and between franchisees themselves • Meant to offer a vehicle for franchisee participation and leadership • Run with a precise agenda • Accountable for communicating its minutes with franchisees • Administered by bylaws that address such issues as communication, composition, term limits confidentiality, and purpose A virtuous FAC is not: • A decision-making body • A conveying body • A vehicle for franchisees to frontward their personal agenda or resolve individual franchisee struggles And FACs can be: • Made up of chosen members or have members selected by the franchisor • Led by the franchisor or franchisee delegates • Appeared (or not) by franchisor management • Compensated for (travel, diet, and lodging) by the franchisor Franchisors, for their share, are often afraid that open communication may inspire franchisee unrest. The error to this thinking, of course, is the supposition that franchisees won't find a way to communicate about any conceivable dissent without these tools. It's far better for the franchisor to hear about latent problems and discourse them before they become chief issues, and FACs provide that chance. The last thing you want is to determine your franchisees have formed a connotation without you: That's usually a sign that something's erroneous and they've left out you from the process of resolving a complaint. Whatever comes next will not be attractive, and it often involves lawful counsel representing the suggestion. A FAC is most often made up of franchisees who are chosen by their fellow franchisees. FACs classically meet two to four times per year, and their regulations (covering aptness, voting rights, confines, etc.) can vary significantly. But the subjects that are typically deliberated remain the same: consumer publicizing and advertising, novel products and services, and any problems of concern to the franchisees in overall. In effect, the franchisees act as representatives on behalf of all the franchisees in the system. In bigger systems, the franchisor may use a sequence of regional FACs that will feed into an all-encompassing FAC so all the franchisees feel they're getting a chance to partake. In some FAC programs, all franchisees in the structure (or province) are invited to appear meetings.
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Trust, but authenticate In many ways, the internet has been an incredible boon to franchising. Intranet sites, chat rooms, blogs, emails, newsletters, real-time reporting, and online training have made communication quicker and more common. And they've undeniably enhanced a franchisor’s capability to train and coach franchisees. But it's not without its downsides. The pervasive and sometimes invasive nature of the internet can all too easily convert a franchisor from the friendly beat cop into an alarming Big Brother in the eyes of a franchisee. Real-time access to the franchisee’s POS structure, distant video, and form-letter emails can auxiliary for dialogue—and in the process form us vs. them environment. So, where's the mid ground? As we said in the start, the key to effective franchise relationships is trust. As a franchisor, you necessitate trusting that your franchisees are compensating all required royalties and appropriately reporting revenues So, at what point are you going too far with that authentication? First, comprehend that verification is in the best attention of franchisees as well. Franchisees agonize when brand standards aren't met. They suffer when other franchisees shark, as that means fewer publicity funds and royalties to back the franchisee community. In short, it's a request for transparency. If, for instance, you use clandestine shopping to uncover destructions of standards and under-reporting of returns, your franchisees should know about it. Hide this from your franchisees, and it will foster disbelief and conflict. Conclusion Strong franchisee relations will require that your franchisees respect your guidance. At the same time, franchisees want to be overheard. And, in fact, the finest franchisors make a point of eloquent how their franchisees feel. So be sure you vigorously listen to what your franchisees have to say. Solicit their feedback on a steady basis. Conduct formal surveys if indispensable is to supplement other feedback mechanisms. At Frantastic, we help our clients to make it first time right with franchising world.
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