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Why Is Communication An Important Aspect Of Franchising Success?

Credible and well-established franchisors provide all the franchisees in their network with useful and regular communication. It involves much more than the courtesy newsletter or email once a week or getting their field representative to conduct a mandatory visit.

Today, it can be extremely tempting to simply carry out all communications via online mediums. Read on to know why communication is an important aspect of franchising success.

One-On-One Communication is Important

However, this depersonalising can prove to be a big mistake. It isn’t uncommon for very basic emails and online communication to be misinterpreted and result in misunderstandings and clashes which can also sometimes be the reason for a complete fall-out. Emails or communication via digital mediums can never be a substitute for one-to-one communication with your franchisees.

Building relationships takes time and effort and maintaining a professional yet amicable dialogue is important. A conscientious and serious franchisor will always make sure they create more than one venue to maintain constructive dialogues with their franchisees. Advertising and marketing councils, advisory regional meetings as well as annual conventions are different ways in which you can maintain this two-way communication with your franchisees.

Maintain Honesty and Transparency in Communications

While all of these are effective ways to keep the network close and working effectively, regular communication involves a little more than these standard meetups. You need to be honest and transparent with your franchises and genuinely care about their success. This is the foundation of a good franchisor-franchisee relationship. When this commitment filters through every level of the network, it will help you build a solid and stable franchise.

If your franchisees sense that you aren’t committed or serious about maintaining good communication levels with them, it won’t take long for them to become adversarial. But when they see you going out of the way to create a formula for success for them, they will do everything required to support you and build a strong business for themselves too.

Communication Matters

Some best practices to follow in franchisee communications include:

• Try to take calls from your franchises rather than redirecting them to voicemail.
• Even when you receive voicemails, make it a point to call the franchisee as soon as possible
• A special franchise support line is a good option if your budget allows it
• Touch base with your franchisees on a regular basis and ensure that your communicating lines are open at all times
• In addition to asking about how the business is doing and whether they have any concerns and need any support, also build rapport by asking about how their family is etc.
• Always be respectful in communications with your franchisees
• Never say negative things about any franchisee to employees within your company
• Make sure you have an efficient technology platform you can use to track phone call summaries and email copies etc. with franchisees. These records can prove to be a valuable source of information to your staff when they are interacting with the franchisees. It’s also important in case any disputes arise and you need some documentation to back up your stand
• You can maintain consistency and tone of communication with all your franchisees by hiring a communications manager who will handle system-wide interactions.

In addition to all these things, you can maintain communication through online channels such as chat rooms, blogs, emails, intranet sites, online training systems and more. All these efforts can go a long way in helping you maintain good relationships with your franchisees and the stability of your network.

If you want to know more about franchising, feel free to get in touch with us at The Franchise Institute. You can call us on 1300 855 435 or fill in this contact us form and we’ll reply as soon as we can.

Thanks for reading,
The Franchise Institute Team
1300 855 435