Read This Before You Ask Franchisees for Feedback

There are so many reasons why it’s critical to conduct a survey of your franchisees – reducing costs, improving performance, increasing royalties, attracting new franchisees…not to mention, your current franchisees will love you for it. 

Whether this is your first time reaching out to formally measure franchisee satisfaction and feedback, or you’re planning for your next annual survey, there are a few simple things you should know first.

5 Things You Need to Know Before Surveying Franchisees

 1. Give franchisees the opportunity to answer anonymously

The ultimate hope is that franchisees feel comfortable providing their name with their feedback. But in reality, that’s not always the case when surveying franchisees. Make sure franchisees have the option to answer anonymously to ensure you get honest and open feedback. Better yet, have an independent third-party (like Franchise Business Review) conduct the survey so franchisees understand that their responses are completely confidential.

Paul Gerrard, co-founder and former COO of Streamline brands, explained how it helped their system. “We’d done an internal survey for a number of years. Although that gave us some good information, we didn’t think it gave us information that allowed us to benchmark across other folks in our same industry, and the franchise community as a whole.

“We wanted to understand how we were doing compared to other franchisors. That was one of the major reasons. The other one is, because we were doing the survey internally, the franchisees didn’t believe it was anonymous. We didn’t think we were getting the frank and straightforward feedback that we’re looking for in a survey. That was solved by using FBR.”

2. Pick a time and stick to it

There will always be a reason to push off your survey—whether it’s other franchisee initiatives, corporate staff changes, technology rollouts, or any of the hundreds of other rationales. But don’t do it! To be most effective, franchisee satisfaction should be measured annually in order to:

1) collect data year over year so you can measure progress and identify trends, and

2) demonstrate a commitment to franchisees that you’re invested in the relationship with them for the long haul.

3. Choose the time wisely

While the most important thing is to conduct the survey (at least) annually, you should also consider the time of year that makes the most sense. If your franchisees’ business is cyclical, don’t do it at the busiest time or the slowest time of year. Try to choose a time when franchisees aren’t overly stressed—either because they’re too busy or not busy enough.

Dale Ballweg, VP of Franchise Relations at Culver’s, says they time their survey to assist with annual planning. “The timing of the franchisee survey is perfect. We get results in early September and our annual planning meeting for our leadership team is in mid-late September. We read through every one of the comments shared by our owners and narrowed down the top three areas for improvement. Those become the following year’s priorities.”

Read more about how Culver’s uses franchisee satisfaction survey data for annual business planning.

4. Close the feedback loop

Once you have your survey data in hand, it’s imperative you share the results with your franchisees, as well as your plan for implementing changes based on their feedback. You don’t have to take every piece of feedback, but if you’re not going to do something, it’s important to acknowledge it and share why it doesn’t make sense for your system. This goes a long way in building trust and transparency with your franchisees, as well as aligning expectations of franchisees and corporate. And, when your franchisees see that you’re actually listening and carefully considering what they have to say, they’ll be more likely to participate in future surveys.

Caring Senior Service was able to build 90% franchisee trust through in person, feedback-driven events with franchisees focused on identifying the issues and opportunities. Ian Klaes, Vice President of Caring Senior Service, shared, “It is vital that the completion of the survey is not the end of your feedback loop. Follow up on that feedback! Give them a call. Send emails. Have conversations in regular meetings and be sure to discuss the feedback at company conferences.”

Read more about how Caring Senior Service has been so successful in their approach to franchisee feedback.

5. Measure continuously to dig deep

Doing an annual franchisee satisfaction survey is most definitely a franchise best practice, But, if you really want to nail it, do some short, pulse surveys in between to dig deeper into a specific area for improvement and/or measure how new programs or initiatives are being received. Pulse surveys can be as short as 1-5 questions and can be done to specific segments of your system to give you greater insights into whether what you’re doing is working and make necessary adjustments before rolling out changes system-wide.

Need more help with your survey planning? Franchise Business Review handles all the work for you. Schedule a demo today to learn how to gather feedback from your franchisees and get a free consultation on the best time to conduct a survey of your system. 

Related Content: Free Comparison Tool

Thinking about adding franchisee satisfaction surveys to your annual operating plan? If you’re not already using franchisee satisfaction research data to identify organizational priorities and accelerate development, now’s the time! This free survey comparison tool will help you get the most for your investment.

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