Marketing Byte: How Franchises Measure the Customer Experience

Last year, Franchise Update Media released its 2025 Annual Franchise Marketing Leadership Report. The AFMR is a survey of top franchise marketing executives that provides insights into the latest consumer behavior trends, innovative marketing strategies, technology, and the impact of digital transformation on franchise businesses.

The AFMR is the first and only report dedicated to B2B and B2C franchise marketing leaders. It includes perspectives from industry experts about the evolving market dynamics and how franchises can stay ahead of the competition. This report delivers data collected from franchisors across the franchise community with responses organized by industry, marketing budget, system-wide sales, and more.

The annual report provides franchisors with the ideal resource for studying their marketing investments, benchmarking their sales and advertising budgets against their own industry categories, as well as setting goals and budgets for the year ahead. The AFMR also includes research into digital advertising practices, the growing investment in mobile and social platforms, and best practices in building marketing teams.

Over the last several years, the AFMR was expanded to include more information about online reputation management and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). It starts by identifying how many franchises are using AI and in which ways, along with their confidence in using the technology. It also looks at how the integration of AI has impacted the customer experience, its challenges and limitations, and their plans for future investment in AI. The report also explores franchisee involvement, franchisee training and support, and feedback from customers regarding the use of AI.

Assessing the customer experience

One of the most important responsibilities of a franchise marketing department is to gauge what the customer experience is like when interacting with the brand. Are customers satisfied with the product or service they are getting? How easy is it for them to interact with brand representatives, and are they getting what they paid for? Do they come away with a positive impression of the brand, and are they likely to become a repeat customer or recommend it to others?

Franchise Update Media hosts an annual Franchise Customer Experience Conference to help franchise leaders best leverage marketing, operations, and technology resources for brand success. In an increasingly competitive consumer environment, knowing how customers view their brand can have a major impact on its success.

In the latest AFMR, Franchise Update asked marketing executives how they measure the quality of their customer experience. Starting with industry sector, at least 75 percent in four of the five groups responded that they use review sites to gather information. The only group that did not was retail (non-food), at 25 percent. The most popular method for that sector to measure customer experience was internal surveys to customers. Many franchises used multiple methods to secure feedback, including third-party customer satisfaction surveys.

We then analyzed responses to the same question based on franchise size. The most popular answer again was review sites, with four of the five groups responding with at least 75 percent in this area. One hundred percent of franchises between 501 and 1,000 units and 1,001 to 2,500 each said they use third-party customer satisfaction surveys. Internal surveys to customers were generally more popular for franchises with a larger number of units.

Additionally, we looked at how franchises measure the quality of their customer experience across multiple services when breaking it down by investment level. One hundred percent of franchises with investment levels of $251,000 to $500,000 and $500 million to $1 billion used both review sites and third-party customer satisfaction surveys. Similarly, all franchises $100 million to $250 million third-party customer satisfaction surveys and internal surveys to customers.

We also asked survey respondents where the primary responsibility of customer experience exists within their organization. In each case, it was a combination of multiple departments, including marketing. But starting with industry sector, we wanted to see which departments had the most involvement in this area. Forty-seven percent of service franchises (brick and mortar) said it was handled by the operations team. Next highest were 33 percent operations teams with retail food franchises and 27 percent operations with service (non-brick and mortar). Only one of the groups (service, brick and mortar) had its training teams handle customer experience.

Operations was again the primary department for customer experience when collecting responses based on franchise unit size. All of the franchises with 1,001 to 2,500 units responded with their operations department, as did 80 percent of franchises with 501 to 1,000 units. Among survey respondents who have yet to open a location, all of them said customer experience was handled at the CEO level, which is a reflection of smaller, developing staff.

The operations team again led the way when analyzing responses by investment level, although there were some additional outliers in that subset. Five groups said customer experience was handled at the CEO level, led by 100 percent of those in the $250,001 to $500,000 level. Thirteen percent of two groups, with investment levels of $25 million to $50 million, and $50 million to $100 million, each said their training teams handle customer experience.

For more information about the 2025 AFMR and how you can purchase the report, read more HERE.