Stop Sending Emails and Call Your Franchisee

By Tam Goldsmith

Tam Goldsmith asks if efficient franchise support is creating too much distance from franchisees.

Your franchisees have portals, dashboards, newsletters, webinars and support tickets. Tam Goldsmith asks a simpler question: when one of them is having a terrible week, can they actually get hold of someone who can help?

A franchisee's manager has resigned. Sales were already down, two employees are arguing about shifts and the landlord has just sent an email about the rent review. By lunchtime, the owner has had enough and decides to call the franchisor.

What happens next tells you quite a lot about the franchise system. In a good one, the franchisee knows exactly who to call, and that person knows enough about the business to have a useful conversation. In another, the owner sends an email, opens a support ticket or is directed towards a portal containing resources that may be useful on an ordinary Tuesday and considerably less useful when the problem is happening now.

Franchisors have spent years improving the systems around franchisee support. There are dashboards, learning systems, automated reports, video calls, webinars, newsletters and increasingly sophisticated technology. Most of it has a purpose, but problems start when the franchisor begins mistaking all that communication for actual support.

Nobody Ever Said, "Thank God for the Portal"

Franchisees need systems. A network with 200 locations cannot operate through random phone calls to the founder, and nobody should expect it to. Training needs somewhere to live, operating information needs to be consistent and routine questions should not require a senior executive every time.

The problem is that franchisees rarely judge support when everything is going well. They judge it when sales have fallen for three months and nobody from head office has asked why, or when a key employee walks out, a local competitor opens across the road or a supplier problem starts costing them customers.

Those are the moments when an online library becomes less important than having somebody experienced at the other end of the phone. The franchisee does not necessarily need the CEO, but they do need someone who understands the operation, knows something about their location and can help them decide what to do next.

Your Dashboard Already Knows Who Is Struggling

Many franchisors receive more information from franchisees than ever before. They can see sales, transactions, labour costs, customer reviews and other operating measures across the network, which means head office can sometimes see a struggling location developing before the franchisee formally asks for help.

That information should trigger action. If an operator's sales have been sliding for 12 weeks, somebody should call. If labour has suddenly moved well outside the network norm or customer complaints have doubled, the franchisor should want to understand what changed before the problem becomes more expensive.

The purpose of collecting operating data should be to improve individual businesses as well as monitor the network. If franchisees provide detailed performance information every week but nobody reacts when those numbers start moving in the wrong direction, the support system is missing one of the most useful opportunities that data provides.

A struggling franchisee should not have to become desperate before somebody notices.

Franchisees Are Paying for More Than a Login

Royalties fund many things across a franchise system, and support is only one of them. But access to operating experience, systems and assistance remains an important reason somebody chooses to buy a franchise instead of building an independent business from scratch.

That creates a reasonable expectation that when something serious goes wrong, the franchisee can reach somebody capable of helping. The person at head office should understand the economics of the business well enough to distinguish an irritating problem from one that could damage the unit if it continues.

This does not mean the franchisor should rescue every weak location, renegotiate every bad lease or solve every hiring mistake. Franchisees are business owners and remain responsible for their businesses. Good support means helping those owners make better decisions while there is still time for the decisions to have an effect.

The Best Support People Know When to Pick Up the Phone

A good franchise business coach learns the operators behind the numbers. They know which franchisee responds well to being challenged and which one needs somebody to listen before getting into the numbers. They can recognise when a normally confident owner suddenly sounds exhausted and understand that two locations with the same sales decline may have completely different problems.

That knowledge develops through conversations, visits and experience with the operator. Technology can make those support people better at their jobs by giving them the numbers before the conversation, showing where performance has changed and removing routine administration that consumes time better spent with franchisees.

The danger comes when technology is used primarily to allow head office to deal with more franchisees using fewer people. That may reduce support costs at corporate level, but the saving becomes questionable if franchisees receive less useful help when their businesses need it.

One Phone Call Can Tell You a Lot About a Franchise

There is a simple way for franchisors to find out whether their support operation works. Speak privately with a selection of franchisees and ask what happens when they have a serious problem, who they contact and whether that person normally helps them reach a useful decision.

Those answers may reveal more than a presentation about the latest support technology. A franchisee who can immediately name the person they trust at head office is describing a very different relationship from an operator who starts by explaining which email address they use.

Good franchisors already understand the distinction. Their field teams know the operators behind the numbers, their technology helps identify where attention is needed, and franchisees know there is somebody sensible available when the business becomes difficult.

That does not remove the franchisee's responsibility for running the operation. It gives a capable owner access to experience at precisely the moment that experience can be useful, which remains one of the strongest reasons to buy a franchise in the first place.

As franchise systems become larger and more sophisticated, they should be careful that efficiency at head office does not create distance from the people actually operating the businesses.

What We Can Learn From This

Franchisors should audit support from the franchisee's side rather than counting the number of tools head office provides. Identify operators whose performance is deteriorating, give field teams the information and authority to intervene early, and measure how quickly a franchisee with a genuine problem reaches somebody capable of helping. Technology should make those conversations faster and better informed rather than replace them. As networks grow, brands that preserve strong personal support will give capable franchisees another reason to stay, reinvest and open additional locations.

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