Would you like your franchisees to feel more engaged and valued by your organization? Would you like them to know that their suggestions and ideas are being heard and are making a difference?
If you would like to reach those goals – and I believe that you would – I would like to make a simple suggestion:
Survey your franchisees!
Surveys are not expensive. They do not require an immense expenditure of staff hours. They don’t even require advanced technology or specially trained personnel. Yet if you want to get the most benefits from surveys, it is important to do them right.
Let’s look at some of the best practices to apply.
Carefully Define the Goals for Your Survey
A survey is only as effective as they goals you define for it. So ask yourself what the main purpose of the survey is. What do you want to achieve as a result?
Some goals could include:
- To find ways to help franchisees get more value from the marketing services you offer.
- To evaluate whether changes you made in the last year are delivering the benefits you hoped for.
- To determine whether franchisees are using and benefitting from the buying resources you make available.
- To identify your future training needs.
As you define goals, ask what you intend to do with the results. Try to envision what you will be prepared to do after survey results come in. Remember that if franchisees offer suggestions that you fail to acknowledge or use, they will probably become frustrated.
Create Benchmarks for Your Survey
Benchmarks are measurables. Some examples could be:
- Increased profits.
- Levels of participation in franchisee buying programs.
- Employee turnover levels.
- Customer traffic.
- Sales of specific products or services.
- Franchisee satisfaction levels that they report on a statistical range.
Benchmarks allow you to understand what has changed from one survey period to the next. They also help you compare what is taking place in your different locations. So be sure to gather those data points.
Commit to Surveying Regularly
When surveys arrive at regular intervals, they become part of what franchisees expect. More of them will respond, and the quality of what they tell you will improve.
In many cases, conducting an annual survey makes sense. But consider distributing your survey at a time of year when you are likely to get the most responses. What are the natural business cycles your franchisees experience? If December is an exceptionally busy time for them, for example, avoid burdening them then with a survey to complete.
Explain the Benefits of Taking Part in Your Survey
I would encourage you to trumpet the WIIFE (“What’s in it for me?”) reward that your franchisees will receive from taking part in your survey. It could be that the new marketing programs you will introduce will be just what they would like them to be . . . that customer traffic to their locations and profits will increase by 30% . . . or that their responses will be used to design the display materials that will be used in their locations.
If you don’t trumpet the benefits, chances are that your franchisees will see your survey as just one more responsibility or demand from franchise headquarters.
Share the results of the survey, so they know you are really listening, and they will feel heard.
Make It Easy for Franchisees to Respond
There are many online services that make it easy to design and distribute surveys and to gather and tabulate responses. But the goal shouldn’t be to create surveys that are easy for you to create and send out. The goal should be to create surveys that your franchisees can complete and submit quickly and easily.
Use professional surveying companies
Companies like Franchise Business Review offer survey options. Doing an annual survey with them or another franchise-focused professional survey company makes a lot of sense. They make it possible to compare your franchise’s performance to that of other franchises. This enables you truly compare how you’re doing with peers and the industry as a whole.
This should be a complement to regular short survey you utilize throughout the year to get needed feedback.
Report Your Survey Results to Your Franchisees in the Right Way
The franchisees who responded to your survey will be eager to know the results and findings, so don’t keep them in the dark. But at the same time, don’t overburden them with a thick report that contains nothing but statistics and graphs.
To respect their time, provide them a well-written executive summary and key results. The summery should explains key findings and what management plans to do with the information.
If you don’t share the results your franchisees will assume you got negative feedback, and in time will get sick of responding, so participation will drop.
To Summarize . . .
- Carefully define the goals for your survey
- Create and use benchmarks
- Commit to surveying regularly
- Explain the benefits of taking part in your survey
- Make it easy for franchisees to respond
- Report your survey results to the franchisees who responded
About Evan Hackel
Evan Hackel is a 35-year franchising veteran as both a franchisor and a franchisee. Evan is Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Podcaster. Evan is the CEO of Ingage Consulting and a advisor to Tortal Training. Evan is also host of the highly successful Training Unleashed podcasts and author of the book Ingaging Leadership Meets the Younger Generation.
For more information, visit https://www.evanspeaksfranchising.com and follow him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanhackel/