ADVICE FOR FRANCHISORS

Jasper or YouChat – and who knows how much more advanced they’ll be in just a few years

By having access to advanced conversational AI, web chat is probably going to be able to interact with consumers more or less like a human being And there’s absolutely no reason to think that written content couldn’t be conver ted to voice too, leaving customers chatting, quite happily I’m sure, to a bot on the phone without even realising Perhaps the conversation would be so reasonable and productive that they wouldn’t mind even if they did

Imagine never having an abandoned call ever again or never losing customers through fr ustration on web chat Ever y single inbound enquir y into your business being dealt with in seconds by a friendly, knowledgeable and capable AI operator One who can hold a call with some useful infor mation and offer workable solutions before seamlessly handing off to a real-life person should the need arise

To be clear, this is not a passing phase Any business owner who wants to reap the benef its must work to get ahead of the game and seriously plan for how they can integ rate AI and, when it gets here, AGI into their ser vices and operations Retrof itting will be costly and substandard, so, going forwards, developments need to have AI synergy in mind

For franchisors, this is going to mean some serious collaboration with your networks As with any model adaptation or development, there will be those for and those against You may even have franchisees utilising AI in some for m in their businesses already, without your knowledge Working to educate and influence will be cr ucial for smooth network adoption in the long r un

My advice is to make this a board-level agenda item and do it today. Cymphony is proudly identifying ways in which we can give our customers the ver y best of both worlds What are you going to offer your customers? And how?

Ignorance or avoidance is the fastest way to becoming obsolete Embrace AI because, make no mistake, your competitors will be n

The BFA has announced the launch of its latest national franchise sur vey and for the f irst time it is sponsored by a franchisor, NIC Ser vices, the provider of commercial cleaning ser vices

As in previous years, the sur vey will reveal impor tant facts and f igures of the UK franchise sector, such as its contribution to the UK’s GDP (g ross domestic product) and the prof itability of franchisees The sur vey is due to be published in Januar y 2024

The sponsors, NIC Ser vices, have been members of the BFA since 2006 and its g roup chair man, John Spencer, is a for mer board member and Chair man of the BFA from 2018 to 2022

Spencer said he believes good data is a key component of making a sound business decision: “Whilst building my business, I found the BFA national franchise sur vey to be an impor tant source of up-to-date infor mation on the sector and I am proud that NIC will now be the main sponsor of this impor tant body of work ”

The sur vey will be under taken ever y other year to give the sector a regular picture of the UK franchising scene

Pip Wilkins, chief executive of the BFA, said: “We could not be more delighted to announce the retur n of the BFA national franchise sur vey and our enor mous thanks to sponsors NIC Ser vices without whom we could not bring this cr ucial infor mation to the franchise sector and the wider British public

“The sur vey is a vital tool to promote and protect franchising in the UK Its results suppor t the entire sector, allowing franchisors to demonstrate the success of franchising to potential franchisees and encouraging successful business owners to consider franchising their business as a route to g rowth and success.

“Since our last sur vey in 2018 we have had the Covid pandemic and now, the cost-of-living crisis, so it is going to be ver y interesting to see what the sur vey reveals, and we ver y much hope the news will reflect the strength, prof itability, flexibility and dynamism of the sector we know and love ” n