Running a franchise in the home services industry is about as American as apple pie, but it doesn’t come easy.

Unfortunately, once a franchise is created, the franchisors often lack full visibility and insight into the work being performed by their franchisees. All that effort the franchisor puts into developing training guides, adhering to legal regulations, and vetting their franchisees, can seem pointless if they cannot even control their business after it’s been created. Rather than rely on real-time information and facts, franchisors are forced to rely more on something that isn’t scalable – trust.

And trust certainly has a place in the franchise model, but transparency is really the key enabler for any successful franchisor-franchisee relationship.

We highlight the 3 main challenges every franchisor faces, and how Dispatch helps to solve them.

Challenge #1: Franchisors Don’t Get Real-Time Feedback On How Well Their Franchisees Are Serving Their Customers.

As a franchisor in the home services industry, you have the experience and tools to respond to particular repair challenges with ease. Yet, waiting for customer feedback on your franchisees exposes your work to serious threats, and loosens your control on the business you built from scratch.

Even worse, without user-friendly technology, some customers may not even provide feedback at all, whether it be negative or positive. So not being able to quickly remedy negative customer comments, or promote positive ones, can leave a franchisor constantly playing a game of “Guess Who?”.

Solution: Real-time Information Delivered With Ease.

No more waiting, hoping and praying that a job is going well. Dispatch’s mobile and desktop platform instantly sends every job detail back to the franchisor, so he or she can see in real-time how their branch is performing.

Being able to access immediate customer feedback allows franchisors to finally level the playing field. No more time wasted collecting disparate pieces of information, sorting out billing issues, or responding to complaints days later.

Challenge #2: Franchisors Don’t Know If The Franchisees Are Representing Their Brand Well

In the home repair industry, every single job can affect the overall reputation of the franchise. It takes just one salty review online to set a franchisor scrambling to restore their brand.

Therefore, the success of a home services franchise depends heavily upon the ability of the franchisor to identify both their poor performing and hero franchisees. Without a clear picture of their franchisee landscape, business managers cannot make the necessary internal decisions that generate strong outward brand awareness and profit.

Solution: Immediate Feedback to Both Franchisor and Franchisee

Immediately following a completed job, Dispatch provides both the franchisor and the franchisee with customer feedback in one simple, technology platform. And if a customer leaves a negative review at any point during or after the job, Dispatch will trigger real-time alerts to the franchisor, allowing them to remedy the situation before that unhappy customer posts their thoughts online.

Getting to the customer before they write a negative review online can help more than just the brand. A Harvard Business School study found that for every star increase on a Yelp review, annual revenue can increase by 9%.

Challenge #3: Franchisors Are Looking For a Better Customer Experience But Don’t Know Where to Turn

All home repair franchises have one common goal – to fix their customer’s problems quickly and efficiently. When that’s their focus, the franchises often lose track of the experience outside of them actually fixing the problem – which is a problem. This is where customers feel helpless and left in the dark, eagerly looking for something to go wrong in order to justify their frustration.

What are the points along the customer journey?

Before the technician arrives, most customers have already passed through a gauntlet of work: from being put on hold with their telco service, rescheduling and playing phone-tag, and waiting all day for the technician to arrive.

In addition, franchisees and their technicians sometimes arrive late due to poor GPS and planning, or they arrive completely unprepared because of a lack of information and communication with their franchisors.

Solution: The Dispatch All-In-One Tool Kit

Poor customer experience ends with Dispatch’s all-in-one customer experience toolkit.

Customers access the platform via a web-based link, where all of their job details can be found. Scheduling an appointment is done with the swipe of a finger, and customers receive automatic appointment reminders, one-click calendar invites, and ‘On-My-Way’ notifications via text.

Dispatch empowers their customers by allowing them to schedule and view when their contractor is actually going to arrive. Through Dispatch’s mobile messaging service, customers can immediately call and text their technician and home repair company. Both customers, contractors, and their companies can also share notes and photos before, during, and after the job, ensuring that everybody is on the same page, and working as one team.

Transparency Is Possible For Franchises

Dispatch equips franchises with the set of both tools and a support network to get the job done well. Franchisors gain complete visibility into the work of their franchisees, allowing them to make better business decisions, and provide a positive customer experience. If you are a franchise in need of help, reach out to us and learn more.