Franchise Focus
Talking about lead generation
How Granite Transformations successfully manages its sales lead generation, tracking and allocation process
INVESTMENT LEVEL: £25,000 S
ales leads and customer enquiries are the lifeblood of any business, without them a commercial enterprise cannot hope to survive. In traditional big business, lead generation is
an ongoing, integrated process that helps maximise the sales team’s effectiveness by identifying prospects and providing the tools to close a sale. With a franchise organisation, the process is rather different because there is something of a disconnect between the franchisor’s head office operation and the individual franchise owners, who effectively own their own businesses, hire their own sales people and generate revenue within their own exclusive franchise territories.
“Franchise owners generate a healthy proportion of sales leads via customer walk-ins, through high-street showrooms and merchandising displays at high-traffic garden centres”
Such a structure needs quite a complex lead generation, tracking, management and allocation system to ensure the incoming enquiries are properly logged, distributed equitably to franchisees, then followed up at local level and converted into business, without losing prospects as they move through the sales pipeline. One franchise operation that has devoted considerable skill and resources to the sales leads infrastructure is kitchen and bathroom makeovers brand, Granite Transformations. This strategy has helped to continually build sales across the brand’s network, with a number of franchisees surpassing the £1million revenue barrier. As all franchise owners appreciate, every contract is down to their own efforts and
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every problem is the fault of the franchisor, but Granite Transformations is clearly getting something right!
Lead generation is perhaps the most straightforward, albeit costly, part of the equation and Granite Transformations’ UK franchisor, RSG Europe, channels considerable expertise and investment into an award-winning marketing support programme. National TV campaigns, press advertising, consumer PR, direct marketing and print, social networking, search engine optimisation and exhibitions are all part of the lead generation mix, not to mention providing its franchisees with local marketing material such as tailored magazine ads and door-drop cards. Underpinning the national marketing campaign and serving as a conduit for most customer enquiries arising from this activity, is a newly developed consumer website that provides optimum browsing facilities for site visitors and has already generated a three-fold increase in internet traffic. It incorporates advanced tracking technology that follows every single visitor and assigns each a unique telephone number, which is instantly identified by Granite Transformations’ central call centre and aligned with the caller’s ID and possible product preferences. Indeed, the recently upgraded call-
centre service plays a vital role in sales lead handling, management and allocation – its consolidated database providing a rich vein of customer information that can be called upon by Granite Transformations for marketing analysis and future emailing strategies. As to the equitable distribution of sales leads to franchise owners, both the website and call centre utilise up- to-date territory mapping information, which enables the identification of nearest showroom locations for website visitors and telephone enquiries. To ensure sales leads are not lost
through missed calls and engaged lines at showroom level, Granite Transformations offers ‘virtual reception’ and ‘virtual phone number’ provisions through trusted third- party suppliers, ensuring that incoming calls are professionally answered and caller ID details logged, out of normal hours or
whenever there’s a caller overflow situation. Customer enquiries and voice messages are also stored on Granite Transformations’ intranet database, the Hub, which alerts franchise owners and nominated staff daily to incoming sales leads.
For franchisees operating within their own exclusive sales territories, RSG provides tailored marketing tools via the Hub, in the form of regional press ads, direct marketing material, point-of- sale showcards and customer incentive schemes. The national PR programme also furnishes product news and feature stories for supporting local advertising initiatives, thereby maximising press coverage and spreading the word locally. Granite Transformations has factored in the option of customised regional websites, with dedicated search engine optimisation and pay-per-click initiatives within the franchisee’s own geographical territory. Franchise owners also generate a healthy proportion of sales leads via customer walk-ins, through high-street showrooms strategically located near arterial routes and merchandising displays at high-traffic garden centres, where there
Investment: £20k-£50k
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