Effective Communication Is the Hallmark of Successful Franchisee/Franchisor Collaboration

Effective communication between key stakeholders is a cornerstone of successful collaboration. People need to be able to talk with one another frequently to share information, knowledge, and ideas, which helps everyone move toward common goals. It’s no less important in a franchised business environment, but perhaps a little more difficult because of the complex nature of two interdependent systems working within the same organization: franchisees in their business units and employees working for the franchisor.

Understanding how cross-functional communication practices in a franchised environment can help keep both groups informed and connected is essential. Equally important to the franchisees’ and franchisor’s success is creating frequent opportunities to share feedback about how the franchise systems, programs, and tools are performing at the individual unit level.

So, what should you be looking for when assessing the effectiveness of a franchisor’s communication tools and protocols? Let’s take a closer look at how franchisors can collect feedback, share information, and measure progress within their franchised systems.

Franchisee surveys

A common communication tactic used by franchisors to gauge the overall sentiment of their franchisees—specifically as it relates to the health of the franchisee/franchisor relationship—is to conduct an annual franchisee survey. Surveys are essential tools that measure franchisees’ satisfaction with specific departments, overall communication efforts, and their views on the overall system and the success of its individual units. They also provide valuable benchmarking data that can be used to measure progress in these areas year-over-year. Measuring progress helps to ensure that any areas of the system and the relationships within it that may have a low satisfaction score among the franchisees are making meaningful progress toward overall enhancements. Like most things in business operations, what gets measured gets fixed.

To effectively execute an annual franchisee survey, a franchisor must have a system in place that ensures each department reviews the franchisees’ feedback and sentiments and works to make meaningful progress in enhancing any areas of opportunity. Asking for feedback from franchisees and then doing nothing with the information they provide is a surefire way to ensure that the franchisees stop filling out the survey and offering feedback. Strong franchisors ensure that additional communication streams about any potential next steps are successfully deployed by each department after the annual survey has been completed and all responses have been received.

Quarterly franchisee meetings

Another communication tactic commonly used to share information with franchisees about upcoming business initiatives and results are franchisor-led quarterly or biannual meetings held virtually, in-person, regionally, or as one large group. Signs of a collaborative quarterly meeting with a franchisor include multiple opportunities for franchisees to have two-way dialogue with the system’s leadership team; to offer feedback on the operating system programs and tools; and to engage in brainstorming sessions focused on the most pressing opportunities in the business at that time.

Be on the lookout for quarterly meetings that are nothing more than a parade of PowerPoint presentations, where the head of each department merely downloads the information they deem relevant to franchisees and nothing more. These meetings do little to build a collaborative working culture between franchisees and their franchisor. The same information could be sent in an email or a recorded webinar for franchisees to view at their leisure. A broader business update followed by smaller roundtable sessions is much better suited to ensure that meaningful collaboration with the system’s franchisees occurs. These types of smaller discussion groups also serve to connect franchisees with one another and enable the sharing of best practices, while simultaneously deepening ties within the franchise community, another significant benefit to building collaborative relationships within the franchise system.

Franchisee Advisory Councils (FACs)

Finally, let’s look at Franchisee Advisory Councils (FACs), another commonly used communication tactic between franchisors and their franchisees. A FAC is most often a select group of franchisees who are asked to sit as a committee and meet frequently with their franchisor to discuss various elements of the business. Most often, the FAC helps to gather feedback about proposed promotions or new product offerings. It also provides a way for representatives of specific geographies to engage with the other franchisees in their area to collect their feedback for the purpose of sharing it back with the franchisor.

For the FAC to be an effective communication body for the system’s franchisees, it’s important that the franchisor provides them with transparent and concise meeting minutes from each FAC meeting. These minutes should outline all the agreed-upon actions and next steps, and a summary of the key discussions so the FAC can share the information with their constituents. Ensuring that the FAC meeting minutes are provided for the FAC members helps the franchisor avoid any “selective sharing” by the FAC reps—a practice where some members share certain information with their region’s franchisees, but not other information they may deem to be less important. If this happens, sharing information across the system becomes inconsistent, and some franchisees are left in the dark, creating information vacuums, which is also not a good result. So, when digging into your FAC, or inquiring about a potential franchisor’s FAC practices, look specifically for how the franchisor manages the communication flow between the FAC members and their constituents.

Another benefit of the FAC is the ability to collect feedback from the system when needed. Frequent check-ins with franchisees can be very helpful when the franchisor needs a temperature check on new promotions, changes within the supply chain, or broader issues related to economic or political issues that may be affecting a specific region. The way the franchisor collects this feedback is critically important. The best approach is for the franchisor to deploy a survey to the franchisees within each region, allowing them to give feedback to the franchisor directly. This survey data can then supplement the information gathered from the FAC reps in their FAC meeting about the same topic. It’s imperative that the franchisor makes all efforts to ensure that the data collected by the FAC reps and brought back to the franchisor accurately reflects how the collective region feels.

Bottom line

Effective communication between a franchisor and its franchisees is essential. Understanding how communication between these two groups is currently happening within your franchised system will indicate how much collaboration exists between them.

Look for communication methods that are concise and transparent and that offer opportunities for two-way feedback and dialogue. Communication like this will help to ensure that everyone is moving together toward the common goal of franchisee success at the business-unit level, as this always leads to franchisor success at the system level.

Laura Darrell, author of “The Principles of Franchisee Success: Apply Them and Take Control of Your Business Results,” is a former franchise operations executive with more than two decades of experience working with Canada’s leading franchisors, Boston Pizza, White Spot, and A&W Restaurants, at both the franchisor and multi-unit franchisee levels. She brings technical insights in organizational leadership focused on how multi-disciplinary stakeholder collaboration between franchisees and franchisors unlocks enhanced business outcomes for both. Contact her at laura@lauradarrellleadership.com.