4 Franchise Tools Every Franchise Needs to Have on Its Radar Tech makes it easier for a franchise brand to find digital tools and training.
By Jeff Cheatham •
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A decade ago, a service franchisee would show up to handle a job estimate with a clipboard, a few blank customer forms and a BIC pen (hopefully, one that still had some ink left in the cartridge.) Nowadays, that same franchisee operation can handle the task with an iPad or tablet, storing all relevant customer information that later gets uploaded into the brand's cloud storage system.
Updates in the world of technology are making life easier for franchisees, especially as it pertains to digital training, tools and platform solutions. For a look at some specific examples helping both the franchisee and franchisor, here are four tools you should consider for your franchise operation's inventory.
1. Automated software solutions
The economy of franchising has created an entire universe of digital vendors and suppliers in the software and online platform space. It seems that whenever a specific need presents itself, a solution arises to handle every challenge. The goal? Efficiencies in both expense and manpower. That's what drives the software and mobile app world.
One of the marketing tools benefitting the franchising industry is Eulerity. Eulerity is a SaaS platform designed to simplify workflow management for paid and organic marketing campaigns (primarily digital advertising) on behalf of a brand and its franchisees. Franchisors can use Eulerity's automation to create, deploy, manage and adjust the frequency and budgets of top-performing ads across all major social media platforms, as well as thousands of high domain-authority websites.
Related: A Digital Revolution Is Coming to Franchising. These Franchises Are Best-Prepared for What's Next.
2. Comprehensive management platforms
More and more franchisors are switching to all-in-one comprehensive digital management platforms that cover the lifecycle of the candidate-to-franchisee pipeline. A franchise management software platform that was used to recruit potential franchisees into the system can now be present if and when the brand makes a sale.
Integrated solutions like BrandWide contain multiple platform tools that handle pre-ownership tasks such as recruiting, onboarding, training and collaboration. Once a business owner has been awarded a franchise unit, the same platform guides operations from a corporate dashboard, including tasks for marketing and customer relations. It's quite a turnkey solution for franchisors, but also gives the benefit of having one integrated platform for franchisees.
Related: 5 Sales and Marketing SaaS Solutions That Will Empower Franchise Owners
3. Tools that troubleshoot
In the vast world of appliance repair, there are two truths. One, appliances fail and sometimes even break. Two, most consumers have no idea how to diagnose, let alone fix problems of this nature.
Enter Oneupweb, a full-service digital marketing firm that counts many franchisors as clients. This tool has a keyword strategy for a website landing page and multiple blogs designed to work as an interactive troubleshooting center for Mr. Appliance – a top appliance repair franchise network. The troubleshooting tool connects to eight specific blog posts that provided crucial details in determining the source of the problem, all with a CTA to contact for assistance. Thanks to its grassroots organic approach, appointments for repairs more than doubled in a year.
4. A heavenly helpline solution
As we're all too aware, phone systems and telecommunications equipment can vary quite a bit. But FranchisePhones, powered by Clarity, offers franchisors and franchisees a phone service that optimizes internal and external, inbound and outbound calls. The company prides itself on the ability to "speak franchising" and offers a comprehensive menu of consolidated services. Whether it's training, support, customer service or monitoring, FranchisePhones is an all-in-one solution designed to increase unit profitability and provide certified support. Best of all, the continual data collection from their Call Insights dashboard can pinpoint and optimize oversight and management for the entire franchise system. The ease of installing and using its solution is self-described as a "Phone System in a Box." Sounds like it, too, was based on the franchise business model.
Related: 8 Women Stars of the Tech World on How the Pandemic Changed Everything
