How do you resolve common franchise training and support issues?

1 Assess your needs

Before you start designing or implementing any training or support program, you need to assess your current situation and identify your goals and gaps. What are the skills and knowledge that your franchisees and their staff need to operate successfully? What are the common problems or questions that they encounter? How do you measure their performance and satisfaction? How do you communicate and collaborate with them? By answering these questions, you can determine what type of training and support you need to provide, how often, and through what channels.

2 Choose your methods

Delivering training and support to franchisees can be achieved in many ways, depending on budget, resources, and preferences. Popular methods include online courses and videos, which are convenient and cost-effective for providing standardized and consistent training. Webinars and podcasts are interactive and engaging ways to provide live or recorded training. Manuals and guides are essential for providing detailed instructions and policies. Lastly, coaching and mentoring offer personalized and supportive one-on-one or group training that can address individual needs. Platforms such as Udemy, Zoom, Calendly, or Slack can be used to create or host these methods, or existing ones from other sources can be used.

3 Evaluate your results

After you have implemented your training and support program, you need to evaluate its effectiveness and impact. To do so, you must measure and analyze indicators such as customer satisfaction, loyalty to your brand, and return on investment. To this end, surveys and feedback forms are simple and direct ways to collect the opinions of franchisees and their staff; tests and quizzes are objective methods to assess knowledge and skills; and reports and dashboards are visual tools to track performance. You can use platforms like SurveyMonkey, Quizlet, Excel, or Tableau to create or access ready-made surveys, tests, reports, or dashboards that are relevant to your objectives and criteria. By using these methods and tools, you can determine what is working and what is not, so that you can make adjustments and improvements accordingly.

4 Engage your audience

If you want to ensure the success of your training and support program, it's essential to engage and motivate your franchisees and their staff. To capture and maintain their attention and enthusiasm throughout your program, you can use strategies such as gamification and rewards, stories and examples, and questions and discussions. Gamification and rewards involve elements like points, badges, levels, leaderboards, or prizes which can be created or managed with platforms like Classcraft, Badgeville, or Bunchball. Stories and examples can be used to illustrate and reinforce your training program; these could be from your own experience, franchisees, customers, or other sources. You could also use questions and discussions to spark curiosity or solicit feedback; these could be created or hosted on platforms like Google Classroom, Facebook Groups, or Quora. Alternatively, you could join or initiate them on other relevant platforms.

5 Update your content

One of the final steps to resolve franchise training and support issues is to update your content regularly. As your business, industry, and market evolve, so do your training and support needs and expectations. To keep your content relevant, current, and accurate, you must avoid outdated, inaccurate, or irrelevant information that can confuse or mislead franchisees and their staff. To do this, you can use methods like research and analysis, feedback and reviews, editing and revision. Sources like books, articles, podcasts, webinars, or reports can be used to conduct research and analysis. Platforms like Google Alerts, Feedly, or BuzzSumo can be used to monitor trends and developments. You can also use methods like surveys, feedback forms, tests, quizzes or reports to collect feedback and reviews. Additionally, tools like Grammarly, Hemingway or ProWritingAid can be used to edit and revise content. For professional help with editing or writing content you can hire or collaborate with editors or writers from platforms like Upwork, Fiverr or WriterAccess.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?