Franchise Update Magazine Issue IV, 2015 | Page 52

tion. “It’s the first impression of the brand,”
says Caron. “Communication by email or
maintaining that electronic communication is not who we are as a company. We
want to get a feel for who that person is
and understand them better. I think you
are never going to be able to replace that
person-to-person conversation to really
understand people.”
For Great Clips, consistency is king
throughout its franchise sales process.
“You can have a great social media strategy, but if you are directing everyone to
your website and no one is following up
with them, you have wasted your time,”
says Caron. “If you have good programs
and good marketing and a solid prospect
follow-up system, that is going to be the
recipe for success.”

BEST TELEPHONE
PROSPECT
FOLLOW-UP
CruiseOne
For first-time honoree
CruiseOne, capturing
the STAR Award for
Best Telephone Prospect Follow-Up and a
placing in the Top 3
for Best Franchisee
Satisfaction (Service)
Tim Courtney
was no fluke.
“We talk every year about what we
need to do to improve,” says Tim Courtney, vice president of franchise development. “Our goal is to win an award, and
what makes it special is getting the team
engaged in that goal.”
As the nation’s largest home-based
franchise travel agent network, no one
may understand the value of a stellar
telephone sales strategy and execution
better than CruiseOne, whose 1,000-plus
franchisees operate virtually. “We try to
make the experience rich and unique all
the way through,” he says. “We are looking for long-term partnerships. Building
relationships over the phone helps.”
CruiseOne employs a variety of online
and social media tools to boost franchise
sales leads and counts on click-to-call to
get the job done, including VOIP and a
call management system tools to manage calls and recruitment metrics, and
conducts mystery shopping to evaluate
best practices.
At CruiseOne there is no middleman:

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the same sales development specialists
work with prospects from start to finish.
“The most important aspect is speed to
the lead. You have to strike while the iron
is hot,” says Courtney.
With its first Star Award under its belt,
CruiseOne hopes to be on stage again
next year to be honored for results that
other brands can learn from and “that
matter,” he says.

being heard, says Durham. The brand
also provides a weekly system-wide communication and hosts a quarterly conference call between the leadership team and
franchisees that doesn’t end until the last
question is answered.

BEST FRANCHISEE
SATISFACTION—FOOD

MaidPro

Checkers Drive-In
Restaurants

The executives at Checkers & Rally’s take franchisee satisfaction to
heart. Since participating in their first Franchise Business Review
franchisee satisfaction
survey three years ago,
Jennifer Durham
the Tampa-based chain
of 815 restaurants has set its sites on annually increasing overall franchisee satisfaction. The effort to dig deep into the
response data \