I’ve become much more interested lately in the study of Customer Experience, a rapidly growing field especially in retail and restaurants. Every touch point with the customer, both before, during, and after the visit, impacts the customer’s decision to buy. In franchising, the customer experience is mostly defined by the franchisor, with only minor execution responsibility for the franchisee. The store layout, marketing, the parking lot, the type of flooring, the web site, the lighting, the registers, employee training, customer service processes…all contribute to the customer experience, which in turn, contributes to repeat and referral sales.
Understanding the elements that make a customer experience successful is critical when evaluating a franchise opportunity. Before you can evaluate it, you need to understand what makes a good and bad customer experience. Learning and keeping tabs on the trends in customer experience is easy with blogs. Here is a list of 36 blogs in the area of brand and customer experience.
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Ryan is an attorney and valuation specialist residing in Chicago. He chronicles his thoughts and research on FranchisePundit.com. You may reach him by email ryanknoll@gmail.com or mobile telephone 312-715-8115.
Ryan:
My observation on franchising, related to customer experience, in very general terms is that you need to be sure that the actual system is worth the risk ensued. For example you have no control over your fellow franchisees level of customer service. And while your franchise may be able to survive the occasional bad experience with a burger the guy across town may produce, the bad oil change that destroys a customer’s engine and results in a court battle and 1500.00 repair bill from the idiot across town may very well doom your enterprise by association.
I noticed this recently with placement firms. It has gotten to the point where many contractors and consultants will simply not deal with some franchises at all because of their reputations; reputations most likely perpetuated by a minority of franchisees. In this case it hurt the zees in two ways, in demand resources have no reason to associate with the zees firm, and eventually customers will come to realize that the best resources are not coming from these firms.
In short, branding is truly a dual edged sword, and certain market verticals are more vulnerable. As I mentioned a bad burger is one thing, taking out an engine or transmission is very much another.
Regards,
FuwaFuwaUsagi
Ryan, I was pointed to a fascinating discussion about customer satisfaction and rankings by Steve Ellerhorst, who is now working with the Curves Franchisee Association.
I promise to send it to you, if you promise to do an article on it!
michael webster wrote on September 8, 2008 @ 11:17 pm:
Michael, sounds interesting. I’ll promise to do an article on it