Why Reputation Management is Critical for Franchise Success

Franchises make up a considerable part of the local business community. While corporate has much influence over many areas, franchisees must work with them to ensure brand consistency across locations and credibility. Critical to this is franchise reputation management. With a reputation strategy for franchises, you can use it for customer acquisition, growing trust, greater online visibility, and retaining customers. 

Challenges persist in executing and adapting it, but you can manage them with the right approach. In this article, you’ll learn why reputation management matters. We’ll review the core pillars of a robust plan and how social listening offers insights. You’ll also find success stories to model your local reputation management strategy. 

The Modern Franchise Landscape: Visibility Starts Online 

As a franchisee and local business operator, you’re well aware of how your online footprint plays a role in brand awareness and customer acquisition. Most people in need of your services start searching online first. They may also see your company through digital ads or be cited in local news sources. 

All these things work to raise your online visibility. If your business isn’t present, you may never become a consideration. Optimized content, being active on social media, and continuous advertising help you earn this. But that alone won’t make you a favored choice. 

People want to know about the reputation of a business before making contact. Much of this comes from online reviews for franchises. They can often be a mixed bag of promoters and detractors. 

Managing this channel requires a reputation strategy for franchises. You certainly want franchise customer feedback. Even if it is negative, it gives you an opportunity to respond and improve. 

More positive reviews directly affect your visibility. Search algorithms prioritize popular brands. 

A lack of this or only complaints can have a detrimental effect on your business. It could even impact the loyalty of current customers. You can’t completely control this narrative, but you can develop ways to manage it. 

If you ignore it, there’s too much at stake. 

FROM OUR PARTNERS: The Essential Guide to Reputation Management 

What’s at Stake Without a Reputation Strategy? 

Franchise reputation management has deep implications. It shapes how customers perceive your company. It may sway their decision-making and loyalty one way or the other. Ultimately, this will have consequences for your revenue and marketing costs. 

Your franchise’s ability to grow and thrive is at the heart of what’s at stake. Organizations without programs struggle with maintaining brand consistency across locations. It’s true that one bad egg can spoil the bunch. 

While you only have direct control over your franchise’s reputation, these initiatives should have corporate support and directives. 

How Does Franchise Reputation Management Affect Your Business? 

It has three main areas: brand equity, loyalty, and trust. You need all three to sustain and grow your business. 

The franchise brand has a national persona, but so does your local shop. Brand perception may be positive on a larger scale, but repeated reputational harm erodes that equity. Just because someone has positive feelings about the brand in general doesn’t mean it transfers to your location. 

Loyalty means repeat business and recommendations. When you start to lose this because of bad reviews or customer sentiment, your current clients have a reason to shop elsewhere. After all, consumers put faith in social proof. 

Data supports this point: 

• 71% of consumers always or regularly read business reviews. 
• 63% of people lose trust in businesses if reviews are mostly negative. 
• 42% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 

This information tells you that online reviews for franchises are critical. It also means that the content of these has implications. 

Loyalty and trust go hand in hand. It’s impossible to have one without the other. A key tool to foster this is having a reputation management playbook as part of your marketing. So, what should it include? 

RELATED ARTICLE: Mastering Local Franchise Marketing: Proven Strategies for Success 

Core Pillars of Franchise Reputation Management 

What should your franchise reputation management strategy include? These five pieces should be part of the puzzle: 

Brand Consistency 

Franchisees have branding guidelines from corporate. In some cases, you may have flexibility to localize. However, you should stay true to both visual identity and messaging. 

Straying from this could confuse customers. They may think you’re not affiliated with the corporate brand, which could erode credibility. 

Soliciting Positive Reviews 

Your reputation depends on what customers say, not your marketing language. Franchise customer feedback in this form is public and has the potential to influence others. 

You’ll need to request these in many channels. Use email, social media posts, in-person after the transaction, and by phone. Emphasize how important their online reviews are to your business and that you’ll use them to improve and learn. 

When customers submit reviews, be proactive in responding. If it’s positive, thank them. If it’s negative, be professional and courteous. Take the steps to find out what occurred and if there’s a way to make it right. 

Some negative reviews won’t reflect your employees’ efforts. Some people can’t be pleased, so you can’t win every battle. 

The one thing you don’t want to do is ignore these. That could signal to others that you don’t care. 

Social Media and Online Presence 

Going back to visibility, part of reputation management is how present you are on social media and online. When you have this, you have spaces for customer engagement. 

Posts on social media and creating content on your website optimized for search engines elevate your presence. People will find you and investigate your reputation. 

Social media offers unique opportunities for reputation engagement. For example, someone may pose a question about your products and services. You can then respond with education and information. It sets your business up as an expert, which is crucial for a strong brand reputation. 

Customer Service Experiences 

Customers may never submit a review or feedback until they interact with customer service. These experiences can make or break their feelings toward your company. 

Corporate often has guidelines for this for the brand. You also need to train staff regularly on how to respond and to act professionally at all times. 

When you successfully resolve customer experiences, it’s also a time to ask for reviews. Sending out surveys after interactions also allows you to identify recurring themes. Then, your training can reflect this. 

Online Reputation Monitoring and Management 

Another pillar of your program should be ways to monitor and manage your online reputation. You could use tools like customer experience software and platforms to streamline reviews. 

It can be challenging for multi-location business reviews, so centralizing this can be helpful. Technology enables this. 

Some key things that should be part of this include: 

• Monitoring brand mentions, reviews, and social media conversations 
• Responding to reviews promptly, engaging with customers, and addressing concerns 
• Creating positive brand content like customer stories 
• Analyzing sentiment in customer feedback 

How Listen360 Helps Franchises Protect and Elevate Reputation 

Franchise reputation management can seem overwhelming. Having the right solutions, like Listen360, can help. Here’s how. 

The Listen360 platform has features for gathering, analyzing, and responding to customer feedback. With these capabilities, you can understand customer perceptions, find ways to improve, and reduce churn. 

The technology has tools for: 

• Real-time feedback: You can centralize the collection of customer feedback across many channels in real time. 
• Analyzing sentiment: This feature lets you get to the root of customer perceptions. From there, you can see trends and act on them. 
• Actionable insights: With data-driven intelligence from customer experiences, your franchise can make better decisions. 
• Managing your reputation: You’ll have access to features that collect and display positive reviews and tools that help you address the negative. 
• Customer loyalty: With these capabilities, you can create customer centricity. You’re taking care of concerns fast. As a result, you could see trust and loyalty improve. 
• Growth and profitability: All these things work together to make your brand stronger and preferred. The lasting results are more new customers and current ones, leading to a thriving business. 

Franchise Success Stories: Reputation in Action 

Want to see how this works for franchise success? Here are some customer stories to explore: 

Sport Clips 

This well-known salon and barber shop business has over 1,800 locations. One franchisee faced the challenge of tracking a high volume of customer opinions. 

To get to the heart of these, they implemented NPS® through the platform. It helped them pinpoint specific scenarios that led to high customer satisfaction. 

Read the story here. 

Mathnasium 

This supplemental education franchise experienced steady growth. They were interested in feedback data and how it fueled this. 

Their approaches to obtaining feedback didn’t have structure until working with Listen360. By using the solution, they were able to monitor trends at the regional level and benchmark NPS® scores. 

Feedback has become a data-driven strategy. Learn more here. 

FASTSIGNS 

This franchise print company has a philosophy of being “more than” a printer. They take a consultative approach. 

They depended on feedback to improve this strategy, but their homegrown system lacked capabilities. 

By implementing the Listen360 platform, they improved customer response rates and were able to capture more “Voice of the Customer” feedback. 

They also instantly know if there’s a negative response at the franchise level and can take immediate action. 

See how it’s powered their success here. 

Final Thoughts: Take Control of Your Brand’s Reputation 

• Review current franchise reputation management activities and identify gaps. 
• Determine your specific goals for reputation management. 
• Research franchise success stories in turning feedback into insights. 
• Request demos of different technologies to compare features. 
• Develop or update your overall strategy for reputation management.