This is a question I ask many franchisors because franchising is a bit of a different business model and it is easy to get confused on who you should be focussing on.
The customer of a brand is usually the end user – for example, a café franchise’s end customer is the people coming to the café to eat and drink. The customer of a service based brand is the customer who enlists the technical service of the franchise.
These are actually the franchisees customers. The customers pay the franchisees in exchange for the goods or services that the franchise brand provides.
Now, the franchisor. Well, your customers are actually the franchisees. They are the people that you get your income from right? They are the people that you serve.
When ever you are doing something to find or help the end user (the franchisees customers), you do this not for the customer, but to help the franchisee serve and provide more/better for their customers.
When you can get your head office team to realise that the franchisees are actually our customers, you will see that the level of support, assistance and patience for franchisees will go up.
But that is where it is a little different. We want the franchisees to be a part of the team, to feel that ownership of the brand, to be part of the ‘tribe’ to use the modern day lingo!
That doesn’t mean we stop doing this – oh no, we want to encourage this. But it should be a very subtle, unwritten rule or guideline, a current or non-verbalised thought that all head office team remembers, the franchisees are our customers. We serve them.
Tracey
PS. If you haven’t already, why not check out my free quick guides and workbooks – you can find them on the home page of my website at www.traceyleak.com !