Restaurant Franchise Satisfaction

by QSR Magazine

What is clear is that there’s room for significant improvement across the restaurant industry, says Eric Stites, whose Portsmouth, New Hampshire, firm, Franchise Business Review, conducts an annual franchise satisfaction survey that is often compared to the J.D. Power and Associates consumer rankings in the automotive industry.

The fast food sector tends to rank about 8 percent lower in franchisee satisfaction than the overall benchmark for all franchise businesses, Stites says. There is particular weakness in four distinct areas: ongoing training and support, effective advertising and marketing, flexibility in experimenting with new ideas, and communication and support among fellow franchisees in a network.

“What I can tell you is that now it’s more important than ever,” says Stites, whose firm conducts the survey free of charge but is frequently retained for follow-up analysis and consulting. “We’ve seen companies make huge leaps in satisfaction just by going through the process.”

In order for research to be successful, it has to be a top-down activity, beginning with buy-in from senior management, Stites says. He says franchisees often call the corporate office with questions or to ensure management sanctioned the process.

“Because of the sensitivity of the data, the CEO needs to be in the loop and the whole management team needs to understand what’s going on,” he says. “We spend a lot of time with the CEO and management educating them about the results, really digging in.”

Slicing the data by geography, market size, and a wide range of other variables can reveal a host of disparities. Comparing the results of franchisees with more tenure against those newer to a system, for example, can uncover inequities in treatment by the parent company, he says.

“The perception of franchise satisfaction that management has—good or bad—is probably not accurate because they’re not getting the broad participation that we get,” Stites says.

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