18 franchisors sign up in first five weeks

Smith & Henderson, a specialist franchise recruitment consultancy, announced today that they have registered 18 franchisors to date, who will take part in their industry-wide study of franchisee satisfaction. The innovative project, entitled the Franchise Satisfaction Benchmark, will encourage and promote best practice in franchising and help prospective franchisees to make better informed investment decisions. 

Free to enter, the Franchise Satisfaction Benchmark works by inviting franchisees to participate in an anonymous online survey, which asks them 30 questions related to their franchise ownership experience. In similar fashion to the Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to Work For, outstanding franchisors will be recognised in The Best Franchise Awards later this year. What makes these unique is they are based exclusively on franchisee feedback.

“The response from franchisors has been fantastic”, said Steven Frost, Partner at Smith & Henderson, who developed the benchmark. “In the first five weeks, we’ve had 18 franchisors register from all different types of market sectors, representing hundreds of franchisees. For some franchisors it’s the lure of being recognised by an independent party as having the best franchise in their sector. For others, the main reason is to gain invaluable feedback from their franchisees about how they’re performing and how to improve their system.”

Alex King, CEO of The Financial Management Centre, which has already participated said “We highly recommend the Franchise Satisfaction Benchmark to any franchisor which considers the franchisee-franchisor relationship of strategic importance. Ever since its conception, we have always understood that franchisee satisfaction delivers customer satisfaction which is critical when building a brand. The Franchise Satisfaction Benchmark has given us clear areas of success which we should be proud of and also highlighted areas of improvement – we intend to use it annually as a management tool to benchmark our development.”

Top performing franchisors also have the option to publish independently verified ratings of their franchise and instantly build trust. However, franchisors have no need to worry if their results are less favourable because no franchisor specific results will ever be released without the consent of the franchisor.