As franchise suppliers for over 10 years, we understand the struggles both franchisors and franchisees face when it comes to exploring and implementing new technologies at scale.

Let’s be real, people don’t like change, but people also don’t like losing money. With addicts, they say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem and we say this phrase applies to franchisors when referring to challenges within their brand. Therefore, no change = no growth.

Our award-winning platform is the solution for operating and managing home service brands. From our experiences with 40 + brands and franchise industry knowledge, we’ve perfected the formula for optimizing operations…

Step 1) Identify Hurdles Step 2) Explore Solutions Step 3) Implement New Tools Step 4) Utilize Tools

See it's that simple! Just kidding, we’ve been around too long to know four simple “to-dos” won’t create overnight success, but with our additional pointers, your brand is bound to have a smooth transition. Let’s dive in further.

Identify Hurdles

Some challenges may be easier to spot than others, but before we start looking for any solutions or new technology we need fullyneed to fully understand the source of our issue.

First, ask yourself “Where?”, determine if this hurdle is internal vs. external, client experience vs. workflow. Once you’ve determined where the issue lies, you can then discover who it is impacting. Franchisors? Franchisees? Prospects? Clients? Or is it just an overall brand issue, impacting all members?

These questions will help determine the severity and support your solution research. As a supplier ourselves, we can confidently say there are a lot of options out there when it comes to technology solutions. But once you’ve taken the time to assess your brand’s challenges, this allows you to be more focused and targeted when exploring new opportunities.

Explore Solutions

I’m sure you don’t need anyone to tell you this, but It’s easy to get trapped in a demo whether it will benefit your brand or not. When exploring solutions, it’s important to work smarter, not harder, and find solutions that are clear and consistent about their services across all platforms from website to social media. Find out what conferences they will be attending and bring questions you and your team might have for them.

If you don’t discover them through IFA or franchised-focused events, be sure they have franchise experience and industry knowledge, as it can be difficult for others outside of this industry to understand your business model. Save yourself the hassle of becoming a franchise 101 professor while trying to implement your new technology.

Once you’ve put together a targeted list of possible supplier candidates and met with them, keep the following questions in mind.

Do they make you excited about their solution? Do they show general interest in your brand? Will your team feel comfortable working with them?

We’re firm believers in trusting your gut, just like you would consider the questions above when interviewing a prospective employee, you should do the same with suppliers. Having a positive and healthy working relationship is crucial for you and your franchisees. Especially when it comes to the most dreaded part of all…training and implementing the new solution.

Discuss how they’ve trained brands in the past and how they’re support is offered before signing on. This will allow you to figure out a timeline and get a pulse on how long the training period will be for your brand.

Implement New Tools

Before your brand starts using this tool, it’s important that both Zors and Zees understand how it works, especially if it’s a comprehensive tool like a CRM or something you will interact with daily. Like we mentioned, earlier training can be the most painful part of implementing a new solution due to a lack of leadership, miscommunication, or resistance in general.

Once the entire brand is aware of the new tool, it’s crucial that everyone is committing to learning how to use this new tool in order to be perfect brand-wide consistency. Most solutions will offer training

Zors and Zees must align on how the solution works and how it is going to solve current challenges, it sounds cheesy but communication is key! All employees must act as both a teacher and a student, open to learning new things, but also willing to help fellow employees.

Lastly, before launching a solution, be sure to pull ROI’s before from the previous solution to compare ROI in the future and see if this change has impacted your brand.

Utilize Tools

Here’s the moment where you give yourself a pat on the back for successfully training your brand to ensure ultimate productivity across the board.

For the first year, we recommend franchisors/brand admins host at least monthly calls to answer any questions franchisees may have about the new solution. This opens up the door for communication and allows you to solve bumps in the minor road efficiently before they turn into a brand-wide issue. It’s also an efficient way to keep track of common issues that team members are running into. This may create a reason to host a virtual demo on a specific topic to reach all team members through one platform.

Another obvious, but important thing to think about, be sure you invite representatives from new solutions to your brand’s annual meeting and schedule in time for franchisees to ask any questions they may have directly.

We’re data nerds, so we will make sure we mention it one more time…..track, track, track it all. This will allow you to assess the solution’s benefits, we suggest waiting at least 1 year of using the new technology to make any decisions about moving forward or not.

Ready to Eliminate hurdles For Your Brand?

We’d love to hear from you! Questions? [email protected] Interested in our services? Book a demo here