Everything You Should Know About Franchise Management Software

Franchise management software is a cloud-based, modular architecture that renders features and tools to carry out operations management, lead generation and management, marketing, employee training, and many more.

All-encompassing franchise management software is formed of several modules that keep interacting and coordinating with each other to produce impacts greater than the total of the impacts achieved separately.

The modules pull information from commonly occurring data points in a bid to cut down redundancies, improve analysis, and secure operations. Typical franchise management software consists of the following modules.

• Franchise development module

Franchising can prove to be an extremely fast and easy method for organizations to make inroads into new and already existing markets. That’s why the franchise development module of franchise management software is of topmost priority to both new and seasoned franchisors.

The franchise development module is underpinned by a leading-edge, intuitive technology platform that helps you be in charge of everything related to your franchise.

It aids you in devoting more time to contacting prospects and focusing on core tasks. It frees up the time involved in carrying out mundane repetitive administrative tasks through overarching automation.

The franchise development module of franchise management software is equipped with the following features that can elevate your business prospects to newer heights.

1. Custom-built sales processes
2. Automatically generated pipeline reports with information about key business metrics delivered to your email
3. Intelligent, custom-tailored reports and dashboards that help you take a glance at key performance indicators (KPIs) and act upon them
4. Smooth, hassle-free integration with leads portals
5. Automatic population of leads derived from the portals
6. Clear, transparent communication with leads and booking agents
7. Alert generation for new leads to speed up the time in contacting them
8. The passage of all leads through each stage of the sales process
9. Visually appealing custom-made templates aimed at reinforcing email campaigns
10. Standardized information conveyed to prospects via instinctive email campaigns
11. Proper single-platform consolidation of hiring and production activities
12. Redundant need to include add-ons or third-party software

• Franchise performance module

The function of franchise management software is quite simple. It helps provide you assistance to capture, measure, and enhance franchise performance. The franchise performance module ensures an improved ROI for both the franchisees and franchisors.

The performance module of franchise management software has the following great features in its arsenal.

1. Simplified processing of royalty fees and other charges
2. Streamlined integration of automatic clearing house (ACH) involved in the processing of royalty fees
3. Effortless management of franchisee locations and territories
4. Automatic collection of profit and loss (P&L) data
5. Intelligent reporting dashboards to keep track of KPIs
6. Intuitive analysis of KPIs
7. Ad-hoc dynamic reports to study business growth and all other financial aspects of the system

• Field service management module

Franchise software comes up with field service capabilities that help you in keeping a watch on the actions taken by your leads. Consequently, it becomes quick and easy for you to convert leads into paying customers.

The field service module is outfitted with the powerful scheduling feature that provides you with the access required for scheduling jobs at every level in usual franchise management, be it the franchisor, franchisee, or field representatives.

The field service management module is decked out in the following features

• Scheduling

With the scheduling feature in tow, you can take to creating new job assignments and allot them to field reps from any device be it a desktop computer or mobile device.

The scheduling feature comes of great help in easily notifying job schedules to franchisees, field reps, employees, and customers via text messages or emails. These notifications are received by field reps on their mobile phones. Once they receive the messages, they’re required to confirm the acceptance of the jobs given to them.

• Field rep reporting and management

At the time of receiving a job order, you can trace and identify your field reps commissioned at the specific job location with the help of GPS. This is accomplished with the help of the main dashboard. You can easily know field reps’ availability through the dashboard’s calendar view. Assignment and reassignment of jobs can be done depending on the availability of the client and the field rep at a given time slot.

Once the job is successfully executed by field reps, information concerning customer satisfaction, revenue generation, and much more can be passed to the corresponding franchisee and franchisor via their mobile phones.

• Job creation to invoice generation

Jobs can be assigned to relevant field reps via a centrally located call center. Alternatively, the franchisee can provide intimation on a job assignment to the field reps.

After the completion of the job, the field service module of the franchise management software can enable field reps to upload photos related to the job, get sign-off from the customer, produce the invoice right at the customer location, and receive on-the-spot payment. As another option, the franchise office too can issue the invoice and get the payment collected via online remittance.

Field rep reporting and management module of franchise management software also puts forward a plethora of supplementary features such as:

1. An all-embracing dashboard for analyzing leads and their corresponding referral sources
2. Comprehensive dashboard with customized widgets conditional on preference
3. In-depth reports for tracking and analyzing leads and their associated referral sources
4. Smooth and continuous import of details related to leads
5. Easy-to-use tools for picking up lead information
6. Simple communication tools for reaching out to leads
7. Effortless documentation of communication exchanged with leads
8. Tracking of referral sources
9. A systematic, clarified method to ascertain the reasons behind any loss of leads
10. An integrated mobile app that removes all the complexities involved in lead management and lets you keep an eye on the leads while you’re on the move.

• Marketing automation module

The marketing automation module of franchise marketing software helps gain awareness about your franchise. And the process is plain and simple yet intuitive. The marketing module helps you get the most out of your franchise and its associated resources. It also helps you in optimizing outreach.

1. Corporate marketing module capabilities include the following:
2. Automated marketing efforts put in through static and dynamic groups
3. Custom-tailored marketing campaign templates separately designed for franchisors and franchisees
4. Centralized database with several permission-enabled folders and files to accommodate marketing collateral
5. Email and text message marketing campaigns to make your outreach better
6. Intuitive reports, dashboards, and analytics focusing on marketing endeavors

• Employee management module

With the employee management module fitted in, franchise management software can help you easily be in charge of your employees and give them unified access to vital information.

The employee management module is furnished with the below-mentioned features.

1. Streamlined communication with employees
2. Timely assignment of schedules related to employee-specific tasks and events
3. Instinctive documentation of every exchange of information shared with employees
4. Specific employee calendars to know and manage staff availability
5. Removal of any scheduling conflicts
6. Instant notification to employees about merging shifts, delays in handover, overtime, and many more
7. Expulsion of incidents of absence related to schedules by constantly facilitating employees with access to information related to schedules and changes in shifts, if any
8. Generation of conflict-free schedules
9. Copying of shifts
10. Import of schedules from several other sources
11. Sharing of scheduling responsibility by empowering employees to change shifts, set availability, and devote minimal time to manage schedules
12. Scheduling and employee engagement are done in a visually interactive way during the scheduling process
13. Schedule updates in real-time to ensure no information loss
14. Easy tracking of the start time and end time of employees during the execution of a job order
15. Automatic generation of payroll files that can be exported to the majority of payroll vendors
16. Generation of dynamic reports concerning employee operations
17. Built-in mobile/tablet app used for providing the following details about employees namely
18. Contact information
19. Work schedules
20. Number of hours worked
21. View and setting of schedules
22. Reminders to employees about their shifts and any changes through emails and text messages

• Customer management module

The customer management module of franchise management software leads to simplification of communication with leads and customers. The salient features of the customer management module are the following.

1. Smooth conversions
2. Clear communication with employees, leads, and customers
3. Scheduling of tasks and events related to customers
4. Easy-to-understand and easily accessible documentation of information exchanges with customers
5. Intuitive generation of invoices and statements for the customers
6. Processing of payments as per invoices
7. Setting up interfaces with leading payment gateways to process credit card remittances
8. Generation of revenue-earning reports
9. Comprehensive reports on operations conducted by customers
10. An integrated mobile app that sends contact details of customers to franchises

• Franchise support model

The customer support model offered by franchise management software is a simple solution catering to unique customer needs. The franchise support model helps in the integration of more than one support channel, automation of frequent tasks, tracking of business key metrics, and reduction in time and effort needed for supporting franchises.

The franchise support model features the following advantages:

1. Simple and engaging self-service
2. Frequent task automation including ticket creation, assignment, tracking, and closure
3. Elaborate, informative reports on KPIs for monitoring, analyzing, and improving efforts
4. Secure, supportive help desk
5. Training materials and instructional resources in the form of manuals, videos, and step-by-step guidelines for incorporating multiple processes
6. An FAQ section for regular tasks that can be updated from time to time
7. A diminution in the need for training and retraining franchisees and employees
8. Simplified best practices introduction and implementation
9. Reduction in committing errors and disruptions in services

• Franchise and employee onboarding model

The onboarding module associated with franchise management software helps hire franchise candidates in an easy, systematic fashion once the requisite franchise agreement is signed off. The model comes up with a main, multi-point list of tasks that can be categorized into a number of segments such as pre-opening and post-opening. Many other checklists are included to ensure tasks remain organized.

1. Intuitive tasks related to onboarding can be fabricated by franchisors that need to be completed by every franchisee or corporate employee
2. Sequenced onboarding to make sure nothing remains stuck up during the execution
3. Assignment of tasks to franchisees
4. Impartment of training for franchisees

In addition to the modules discussed above franchise management software supports many others such as intranet, training, finance, survey, etc.