How to Keep Customers Happy and Drive Continuous Improvement

Striving for the highest level of service and care will allow your franchise to set new standards for customer service.

By Jeff Bevis

For franchisors and franchisees, a sharp focus on customer satisfaction and continuous improvement throughout all areas of your franchise system is critical for success. Franchisors can help their franchisees excel in these areas through franchise onboarding training and operational systems and processes that help them deliver world-class customer service. In addition, creating an environment at the franchisor level that encourages and rewards continuous improvement will allow franchisees and their employees the opportunity to focus on improving customer satisfaction.

In my nearly three decades of franchise experience, working within six different franchise systems, I have witnessed challenges that both franchisors and franchisees face in keeping customers happy. While some issues are inherent to service industries, gaps in planning, resource management, and understanding how to best serve their franchisees require franchisors to review their own operations manuals and procedures to drive continuous improvement. Franchisors should always bear in mind that franchisees are their clients, and they must be diligent in offering the same levels of outstanding customer service that franchisees are expected to offer their customers.

FirstLight HomeCare, continually strives to improve our business for our franchisees, their employees and our clients. Our strategy is guided by an inverted pyramid service ideology, where franchise owners’ client-facing employees are at the forefront of our internal customer service policy. Making sure that client-facing employees are happy, loyal, and feel valued is an essential part of ensuring that our non-medical, in-home care clients are delighted with the choice they have made to work with us.

The second tier in our inverted pyramid service ideology is our franchise owner. By giving franchisees the tools, support, customer service assistance, and encouragement they need, you enable them to improve on their successes, strengthening the overall business. Focusing on franchisees also means providing continuous, constructive feedback on areas where they can improve their business and the quality of service they offer clients and employees. Creating a business environment that values client-facing employees and franchisees is a distinct value differentiation for the home care industry and the franchise market as a whole.

Focusing on Service

Successful franchise systems share a common goal to grow their businesses; the most prosperous ones achieve this goal through a keen focus on providing superior customer service across their organizations. When meeting with other franchisors, one of the most frequently discussed topics is how to define outstanding customer service.

To understand how your brand is perceived by your clients, ask them. It sounds simple, but creating and distributing regular client satisfaction surveys on behalf of your franchisees is one of the most valuable ways to get client feedback and understand the perception of your business. Sharing results, regardless of whether they are good, bad or ugly, helps franchisees and their employees understand their areas of strength and opportunity so they’re able to determine future courses of action to drive continuous improvement.

We conduct these types of surveys with our franchisees’ clients on an ongoing basis through an outside third-party service and share the results directly with franchisees to drive greater levels of customer satisfaction. These surveys have helped our franchisees grow their customer service satisfaction ratings on a national basis. At the franchisor level, we have used franchisee survey information to hire additional support staff, create new programs to allow our franchisees to enhance caregiver retention, install new systems to simplify processes, and integrate detailed plans for success to help franchisees grow in their individual markets.

Driving Continuous Improvement

Improving client satisfaction will not come from a one-time process change. Personnel turnover, ongoing business requirements and changes to policy mean that franchisees must strive for continuous improvement to keep customer service at the highest possible level.

Prior to launching FirstLight HomeCare, I led another home care franchise for five years and the experience showed me the value of customer satisfaction surveys to improve client retention. When we attempted to implement customer service assurance programs within the existing franchise base, there was hesitation and acrimony in trying to “change the way that we have always done things.” Existing expectations and resistance to change can often be difficult barriers to overcome in the quest to improve customer service.

When we started our company, incorporating continuous improvement methods and client satisfaction surveys were a key component of our franchise business model. From the beginning, our franchise owners have embraced these ideas. Even franchisees who had previously owned other franchise businesses have provided feedback that the regular client surveys are a welcome touch point that help them increase customer satisfaction.

Beyond conducting surveys, programs that recognize franchise locations with exemplary customer satisfaction feedback scores help reinforce the focus on customer service. We have developed franchisee recognition programs that highlight key priorities for our business — overall quality of care, hours per week of client service, client feedback about caregivers, revenue and contracts awarded. By regularly recognizing client satisfaction ratings and overall performance, we drive home the importance of customer satisfaction for the entire franchise.

During our franchise’s first two-and-a-half years in business, some members of our industry attempted to downplay our client satisfaction programs that recognized how satisfied and happy customers were with our service. In the past three years, many of these same individuals and organizations are now contracting with the third-party research firm we have used since our inception to implement standard client surveys in an effort to continuously improve customer satisfaction.

Regardless of your franchise’s vertical, following the basic tenet to always strive for the highest level of service and care (knowing that perfection is elusive, but still the overall goal), will allow your entire franchise system to set a new standard for customer service in your industry. 

Jeff Bevis, CFE, is co-founder and CEO of Cincinnati-based FirstLight HomeCare. Find him at fransocial.franchise.org.