Artificial Intelligence Will Help Franchisors Speed up Franchise Development

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During the past several years, you have probably read or heard about the increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its applications. AI has already had a significant impact on Human Resource departments, especially recruiting job applicants. In a report by Data IKU, Korn Ferry stated that 55 percent of staff believed AI had already changed the way their organization recruits. IBM receives about 8,000 resumes a day and is the most searched employer on Glassdoor, an employment site that includes employee ratings for their company. IBM uses an AI algorithm that can predict with 95% accuracy whether a worker is planning to leave his/her job.

Related to AI is natural language processing (NLP) which enables computers to read text, hear and interpret speech and determine which parts are important, like Alexa. A report from Tractica predicts that NLP software solutions capitalizing on AI will grow from $136 million in 2016 to $5.4 billion by 2025.

AI and Franchise System Development

If AI resume software automates resume screening, then AI applications should offer franchisors a major opportunity to improve their franchise system development. Using AI to automate the screening of franchise prospect information could help spot qualified candidates much faster. Also, using phone call speech-to-text and NLP can provide more opportunities to gain information from candidate conversations. Service Score’s Qualifier Call Optimization (QCO) platform uses recorded prospect calls with an analysis engine powered by the latest AI tools to deliver opportunities for converting more calls to applications. A number of franchisors currently use the Service Score application.

Franchise Departments Should List Its Telephone Number

A number of franchisors fail to list their telephone number on their franchise page and require prospects to submit a form. This has become somewhat of the norm rather than offerring two ways to contact the franchise department. Hiya’s annual State of the Call report found that more than 12,000 consumers and 2,000 businesses ranked the phone call No. 1 for remote interactions, beating out text, email, video calls, and chatbots.

?During my career I built three franchise systems in different business categories. In each case our phone number for the franchise department was available. I considered every franchise lead valuable and wanted our staff to be able to engage with potential franchise prospects as soon as possible. It was my experience, that individuals who called the franchise department before submitting a contact form, were eager to learn about our franchise opportunity and had important questions. In many cases it resulted in the person submitting a franchise application.

Top franchisors like Service Master Restore, BrightStar Franchising and Neighborly follow this process. Here is BrightStar’s Message: “Our friendly and experienced team is happy to help you get started. Call us at?872-xxx-xxxx or request a call from our team by filling out the form below.”

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Franchisor’s Should Prepare for AI

Its time franchisors prepare for the increased use of AI applications in various franchise operations. This should include franchise development. Here are steps franchisors can take to begin the process:

·????????Compile data to construct a franchisee profile of top performing franchisees or the ideal franchise candidate.

·????????Incorporate franchisee profile data into contact form and franchisee application.

·????????Include franchise department contact telephone number.

·????????Franchisors should speak with several AI software companies to learn about the process and cost of using AI applications for franchise development.

Mike Bidwell, president and CEO of?Neighborly stated: “We believe employing AI will be key to gaining or even maintaining a competitive advantage in an increasingly informed and sophisticated marketplace.”