SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT FEATURE
Supporting franchisees without hammering the profits Following on from the franchisee selection process, the training, launch support and ongoing business mentoring can place huge demands on a franchisor and their support staff. This, in time, can seriously eat into the franchise network’s profits, and so care is needed to balance being supportive to franchisees with managing the time spent on each one.
A good software platform enables franchisors to better manage support queries from across the network. The software can store and distribute best-practice guides and documentation easily and provide an invaluable knowledge share source or forum. In time, it can also help franchisors to grow the franchise network with fewer support staff as all the information franchisees need is stored in the system. Search functionality in a system such as XEUS means that franchisees can quickly find all the information, guidance, and resources they need. This information can be easily updated as new best practices or changes occur, which means that everyone in the network is soon up to speed with the latest network standards and processes.
Breeding franchisee success Successful franchisees are the ultimate goal as they make for a successful network that more people will want to buy into. For the franchisor, success here typically equates to happy franchisees, low support time and resource costs, a good margin on sales and impressive profits.
Whilst marketing and sales are something that a franchisor will have had to do to get their business to market as a proven franchise, this doesn’t mean that franchisees will automatically generate the same success from their own performance. As we all know, sales come from leads, and leads come from marketing. It’s therefore important to support franchisees’ marketing efforts with strong campaigns that generate results. The beauty of good franchise management software is that it can track the performance of marketing campaigns as leads are entered into the system. This guides the franchise network as to the campaigns that deliver a good return on investment and those that don’t. Software is also being used to arm franchisees with valuable tools to better manage their contacts, prospects and overall sales pipeline. The XEUS system in particular
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www.xeus.co.uk
“Direct debits and credit
card payments for your whole franchise network
offers support throughout the sales process by allowing franchisees to create follow-up actions to ensure they are making the most of opportunities as they arise. It enables the franchisees to manage their sales pipeline online and set prompts about sales leads that need to be followed up in a given timescale. At the same time, the software also helps franchisors view individual franchisee’s sales pipelines and prospect lists as well as conversion ratios and performance indicators on that franchisee’s ability to close sales. Furthermore, with the XEUS system, the franchisor can access aggregated statistics for the whole franchise network that show the best and worst performers when it comes to marketing and sales. Armed with this information, best practice can be highlighted and shared and time be allocated to those franchisees in most need of help and support.
Transparent billing and invoicing An area of the business that most franchisors focus heavily on – albeit often a month in arrears – is financial reporting. Many, however, say that it takes much more time than it should to gather all of the billing information from franchisees and work out the appropriate charges. This is especially true if there are
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varying margins on different sale types. Once the billing has been calculated for the franchisees, franchisors then often find collecting all of the payments to be a very time-consuming process. With the franchise management software XEUS, all the invoices from across the network are raised within the system. This gives franchisors unparalleled access to vital financial information such as aged or bad debt. They can also assess an individual franchisee’s operational effectiveness and see when they are being paid.
In fact, XEUS also works out the margins
across all of the franchisees’ sales. So whether the franchisor takes a percentage of sales, different percentages for different products or services, national marketing levies or fixed franchise fees, XEUS works out in real time exactly what the individual franchisee owes. The information can also be viewed by a franchisee within the system so they know what they are due to pay. And this, in turn, helps to prevent any nasty surprises arising at the end of the month when payment is collected. What’s more, when the system combines with direct debit, franchisors can reduce debtor days by ensuring payments from franchisees are collected on time.
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