If you’re considering buying a franchise, you should think about franchisee satisfaction. Don’t know what that is? We got you. We delve into how we get the data by asking franchisees how happy they are owning their franchise.
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Summary
Franchise Business Review is a market research firm dedicated to franchisee satisfaction. We work hard to understand how happy franchisees are owning their brands. This episode gets at our process and explores:
- Why you need franchisee satisfaction data if you’re researching franchises to invest in.
- Why FBR’s data is unbiased and how we keep it that way.
- What our surveying process looks like.
Enjoy this engaging conversation with Maria Harmon about how FBR conducts our research.
Resources
- Listen: Announcing the Top Franchises of 2026
- Listen: The Importance of Talking to Franchisees Before Investing
- Listen: Who Is FBR? (our first podcast episode)
- Read: The Five Most Important Questions to Ask Before Buying A Franchise
- List: The Top 200 Franchise Brands of 2026 (Based on Franchisee Satisfaction)
Transcript
Maria Harmon (00:00)
Hi, and welcome back to our podcast. I’m Allison Dudas. I’m from the marketing department here at Franchise Business Review. Today, I’m taking over from Michelle Rowan, lucky me, because we are here to talk a little bit more about Franchise Business Review survey data. And today, I’m really excited about our guest. We have Maria Harmon from the Client Success Department at FBR.
to really demystify, and we need like a chime or something for that word because Maria really likes that word. We’re here to demystify the survey process. So we spend a lot of time talking about our data here on the podcast. And I think it’s critical to get into, how do we actually collect that data? And people like Maria are on the front lines. And I wanted her to come on so she could really talk about.
our surveys, what we ask our clients, how we do it, how it all gets handled so that if you are somebody considering buying a franchise and you come to our website, you know where our data comes from and why you can trust it. Maria, thanks so much for being here. Well, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. You know love FBR, so. I know. I know. Yeah. And you’re a good sport for coming on the podcast. knew. I knew. they say.
I knew you’d be willing. Not everybody wants to come on the podcast, but guys, it’s so fun. But I love to hear myself talk.
All right, so Maria is a senior client success manager here at FBR. And she’s honestly the woman who knows all the things.
So when franchise candidates see rankings or our satisfaction awards, many don’t know what goes into them. And so we are really trying to take you behind the scenes of how franchise business reviews, surveys, franchisees.
and why that process matters.
Maria, tell us about your role at FBR. Yeah. So as a senior client success manager, I run ⁓ a portion of our survey projects. It used to be that there were two of us, and we ran sort of 50-50 on survey projects. And recently, we’ve brought on Ella.
who we’re so happy to have. But that means that we get to sort of divvy things into three buckets. And my bucket is sort of the latter end of the alphabet, as well as ⁓ projects that are highly customized, ⁓ complex reporting, that kind of thing. People who really want to dig into the data and have specialized needs for that. So when you talk about splitting it up with the alphabet, you mean by franchise brand names.
I ran probably upwards of 200 survey projects last year, including employee, franchisee, and Pulse surveys. So just a little smaller one as a check-in point. Right. OK, so Pulse surveys are just check-ins. Employee surveys are when franchise brands come to us and they want us to survey their employees. And really, the ones that we’re most talking about are the franchisee satisfaction surveys. So a franchise brand, let’s think of a big one that people know. Wild Birds Unlimited.
might come to us and say, please survey our franchisees to find out how we’re doing, right? Mm-hmm. OK. So and actually, Wild Birds Unlimited being towards the end of the alphabet is under your purview. It is. I do have the pleasure of working with them. Love Wild Birds. How long have you been involved in the survey process? Almost since I started. So I started February, three years ago. ⁓ And a lot of my initial work was sort of
back end stuff, learning the biz. And then from there, I kind of jumped in with two feet. We didn’t have sort of the same processes that we did now ⁓ with documentation around like sort of the how to of it all. So I really did sort of jump in and learn trial by fire. And it was very exciting. ⁓ You get to do a lot of different things. I mean, the variety of brands that we work with. So many different kinds of brands. that there’s a lot of needs being met at all times. Yeah. Yeah.
⁓ What gives you a front row seat to how all of this works? So as part of my role, I ⁓ connect with the clients or the brand. ⁓ We build their custom project. So that includes, I don’t know if we’re familiar, do we know the base of the survey? Well, you could probably talk a little bit more about that. Yeah. Sure. So our survey is built with 33 benchmark questions. Those cover areas like training and support, franchise system, core values, leadership.
financial opportunity, ⁓ a little bit of everything there. And we also have questions ⁓ for demographics, like units, tenure, region, age, gender, veteran or not. ⁓ And those can help with filtering the data, saying are ⁓ single unit owners more or less satisfied? Are people who are more tenured more or less satisfied? ⁓ Is the new onboarding experience for those in the less than two years bucket ⁓ improving year over year? So are the newer people happier? Does that mean we’re going in the right direction?
So it can kind of be for things like that. So we’ve got a little bit of everything in there. And just to, again, just to demystify. So when we talk about benchmark questions, these 33 questions, those are similar all across the board. So every single franchise brand that we, whose franchisees we survey get asked, those franchisees get asked the same 33 questions. Now, franchise brands can choose to add more questions if they like, but those 33 questions are the ones that you’re going to hear us talk the most about because they get really at.
how these franchisees feel about owning their franchise location. So how their training and support is, all the things that Maria just mentioned. And that’s exactly where, when you’re looking at people who are sharing data on our website, that’s exactly where that score comes from. So we take the raw average of those 33 benchmark questions and we add sort of an awards rating that might be ⁓ an increase in points because they’re a really large system with really great participation. It might be.
decrease in points because we do review the FDD as part of the process. And if there’s been a lot of turnover, that is a little bit of a ding. ⁓ So you’re seeing their raw FSI plus sort of an overall consideration of the system and engagement as a whole. And FSI stands for? Franchisee Satisfaction Index. Yeah. So that’s you. Yeah. So you’ll see for brands that are actually sharing their reports on franchisebusinessreview.com, you’ll see an actual number assigned to them when you click on them. And then, of course,
subsequently if you decide to download their report to see more. So you’ll see. And what’s the scale of numbers that we use? So they’re 0 to 100. And an FSI type question, a franchisee satisfaction index type question, is on a five-point rating scale. So if you’ve ever taken one of our surveys, you’ve definitely seen this. Usually it’s an excellent to poor or a strongly agree to strongly disagree. And each response receives a weighting. So strongly agree will be 100, agree is 75, neutral is 50.
all the way down 25 and zero with that disagree and strongly disagree. And that’s how we get a rating for an individual question. And we really protect those 33 benchmark questions within the survey. We do offer some amount of customization, like maybe instead of senior leadership ⁓ promotes ⁓ team culture, we might allow you to say leadership promotes a team culture or the executive team promotes a team culture, but we really protect the essence of those questions.
And brands who are removing those questions from their surveys aren’t eligible for awards considerations and so aren’t eligible to be featured on our website. ⁓ So that’s really the core of what we do here and that’s sort of how we maintain the standard of data that we supply. That’s great. I always talk about anything that I write on the website or even coming here on the podcast, how at our heart, like we are.
We are data nerds here at FBR. We are collecting data, which is funny because I’m in marketing. I don’t think your background is necessarily data. that is the hill that we die on. That is the foundation upon which we stand is data, ⁓ which, again, is why I was so excited about having Maria on here. So can you walk us through what happens when a franchise brand comes to FBR and says, please conduct a survey? Absolutely. ⁓
So in terms of the breakdown of the prep process, it’s really, are they ready to go? If the answer is yes, we sort of get an idea of timing. Sometimes they might base that around conference so that they can either wrap before conference and ideally present that data back to the franchisees. So like a conference that all of the franchisees from that brand are having. Yeah. Yeah, like Kona Ice has a cone-vention or like. So cute. Yeah, that’s what they call it with K-O-N.
lot of. So a lot of brands will have, I think probably all brands to a certain degree, have some kind of yearly meeting. OK, so they’ll want to maybe do it right before conference so that they can circle back with their franchisees, share the data. Or maybe even right after a conference so that they can announce it then. Some brands do a regional meeting where they do a series of small group meetings as the name entails based on the region. So they’re really some base it around the time that they’re engaging with franchisees. And they can either be sharing the data back.
or be saying, please expect this to come, like we want you to participate. So they kind of base timing around that sometimes. And once we have sort of ready to go timing, we get the contact list and survey structure from them. And the contact list will be usually ⁓ first name, last name, email, sometimes like mobile number or phone number if they have calls or texts in their agreement. ⁓ And in terms of outreach, that’s sort of the bread and butter of what we need to make that happen.
So during the run of the survey, all brands are going to get email reminders. So those will come from us. And it’ll say, hey, here’s your custom survey link. Please take your survey. And sometimes they do get texts which ⁓ start with a disclaimer, like an opt out. And then there are, of course, calls. We have two lovely ladies, ⁓ Juliana and Jennifer, who make our calls. And they leave either a voicemail or they talk with the franchisee directly. And they sort of explain the survey. ⁓
offered us this, if needed. And I think something that’s really interesting to note is that we, Franchise Business Review, are the ones that are operating the survey. So if Senior Care Authority, visiting angels right at home, I’m thinking of our Senior Care franchises for some reason, are conducting a survey through FBR, their executive team is not reaching out to the franchisees to be like, fill out this survey. It is third party. is less pressure. is people aren’t going to feel like they can’t answer truthfully because
We are kind of their barrier between the executive team and the franchisee so that they can really be honest if they want to be. And that’s, think, a good question here. So can they be anonymous? Yes. So all of our surveys are anonymous by default. And what that means is on the final page, you have the option to share your submission with your name attached. Or you could say, no, I want to be completely anonymous.
If you select neither of those options and you just click unfinished, you’re anonymous by default. ⁓ So it really is a manual opt-in process if you don’t want to be anonymous. And whenever someone ⁓ reaches out to us, franchisee maybe, and they say, hey, how is this really anonymous? I have a custom link. It’s specific to me. That identifies me. What about this is anonymous? And I think that ties back to sort of the prep process, which is once that contact list is in our hands, that’s ours to handle.
We do not disclose at any time who has or has not completed the survey to the client. That is entirely up to the person who submits. So if they submit with their name attached, of course the client will be able to see their submission with their name attached. ⁓ But we’re really sort of dedicated to protecting anonymous surveys for those who want to provide them. ⁓ And to that end, none of our questions are forced response, which means that if you do not want to answer a question, you feel that it identifies you specifically.
And that question is standing between you and completing the whole survey and providing honest feedback. I’ll say it’s OK. You can skip. If you know that you’re the only new franchisee, you can skip the 10 year question because we really prioritize that honest and open feedback over everything. Yeah, I think that’s critical. And I think if you are somebody looking at franchisees because you want to invest, it should be a red flag to you if a franchise brand is conducting their own satisfaction survey because.
A franchisee is not going to feel as willing to be honest with their own franchisor with no barrier between them as they would be when they fill out a survey through someplace like FBR. Yeah. I think that’s one of my favorite conversations to have is to take a little bit of a hostile or concerned incoming call and be able to provide the honest reassurance that that’s a standard that we maintain. Yeah. Yeah, because obviously,
We love it when franchisees are happy, and we love it when the franchise brands that are on our site perform really well in these surveys. that’s not always, that’s definitely not always the case. And something I want to ask you, so Maria, there are some open text questions that are included in these surveys. And I want to know what are some of the most insane or angry or whatever things people have ever said, or funny or positive. what kind of, give me the open text.
Tea. Spill the tea. Okay, so I will sort of preface this by saying that what we say at FBR is you can’t improve what you don’t measure. And when brands survey with us, always say, you when they come to survey again, we say, so about your last survey, did you share the data back? Did you connect with the people who shared their name? Did you thank everyone for providing their feedback? Are you creating a feedback loop where people are giving their feedback, hearing that it’s being used to make change?
and then getting to provide additional feedback on how that change is going. So you can tell based on the open text responses who is or isn’t successfully creating that loop independent of whether or not they’re being rated highly. So you could have a brand ⁓ with lower scores, ⁓ people who are dissatisfied with the training or the marketing or the technology. But you can see in the open text responses that they’re working on it and that they’re transparent about the fact that they’re working on it because those responses turn from
you know, this is garbage, I feel like they don’t have my best interests at heart, I think that they’re only focused on the bottom line, and they transform from, listen, this is really frustrating and it doesn’t support me the way I need it to, but I really appreciate that they’re making strides and I can tell they’re working towards change. Like, I think they’re going in the right direction, I could use a little bit more. It really changes the tone. So I think that that, just at a glance, is a pretty good tell for whether or not people are really… ⁓
taking that you can’t change what you don’t measure to heart and making sure that that transparency is reflected back onto the system. ⁓ That’s such a good point. Yeah, because those open text responses are a chance. I mean, I think about whenever I filled out the survey. And sometimes I just can’t wait to get to the box at the end, where I can either share all the things that are making me frustrated, or I can be like, gosh, right?
Or if there’s one specific thing that you’re like, can you just fix this thing, please? ⁓ Yeah. What are some you were telling me before we started recording about some silly things that people have said? I mean, people will say, honest and open feedback, right? But sometimes people will be a little more honest and open than you might think. So I’ve seen ⁓ we have a question like, ⁓ would you do it again knowing what you know now?
And I’ve seen people say, yes, absolutely, I love this franchise. But if I were to do it again, I wouldn’t get married this time, which I’m so sorry. I don’t think we can help you with that. Best of luck. Sorry. That is perhaps not our purview. Right, right, perhaps. And maybe we can’t factor in that tidbit of info in the FSI score. No, I don’t know that your ⁓ marriage satisfaction ⁓ is measurable as part of your franchisee satisfaction index. I don’t know that that’s the most real.
⁓ But on our employee survey, we do have a section where we ask, how are you doing? And tell us more about it, physical, emotional, mental. So we do dig a little bit deeper into the personal side of things on the employee side, because it is less about the business. Yeah, that’s so true. Right, right, right. But this is really the place for that. have had, ⁓ we have a senior ⁓ management question. So you’ll see testimonials on our website. ⁓ And those are actual statistics and actual feedback taken from the survey. And a lot of the time when we’re choosing
the data points, of course, we read through the open text and that’s how we choose the testimonials and we try to make sure that we’re choosing a testimonial that represents the majority of sentiment. So if I’m looking at feedback for training and support and Jim loves it, Jim cannot say enough good things, but everyone else in that section is mostly dissatisfied overall and would like to see some improvement, I don’t use Jim’s quote. So to that end, senior management, have the question for that is,
do you have any constructive feedback that you could provide to senior management? It’s something to that phrasing. And because it is a constructive feedback section, I don’t usually end up pulling tidbits from that because that’s what people are providing. They’re not really giving you a sound bite where they’re telling you what they appreciate. They’re telling you what they’d like to see more of. And to that end, I have seen someone who said, ⁓ what constructive feedback would you provide? And they said, ⁓ choose a different job. To the senior leadership. Yes. Ooh, yeah.
Yeah. ⁓ man. We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen the constructive. We’ve seen the silly. We’ve seen the frustrated. It’s all there. It’s all there. And business ownership is wild, right? ⁓ So some days you’re not happy. And I think the thing I like about this is that if there are some patterns that appear for a franchise brand in their data, in their survey data, they can.
see that and go, wow, everybody seems to be dissatisfied with the marketing that we provide. We need to do something about that. Yeah. And what’s interesting, too, is that ⁓ we have a heat map feature, which is essentially a breakout where you can look at data, clients can look at data in the online tool based on units, tenure, or region. And that can help target actionable feedback. And that plays back into that feedback loop. I did see a brand who
were rated pretty highly in marketing overall, but they had a very low score in the West. Interesting. Yes. So that’s a huge opportunity for them, being able to identify that, to go back to the West and say, hey, what is the challenge in your market? They were so baffled. They said, our support is the same across all regions. I’m not sure why they’re less satisfied. And I said, that’s very exciting, because this is an easy target. Go back to those people. Dig a little deeper. Use those open text questions. Maybe a smaller pulse survey to target and say,
What’s the missing factors? Is it a more challenging market? Are there more complex needs? Right. Or it’s like you’re a regional director for the West, like not pulling their weight. Yeah, so much interesting stuff. Because our hope is that franchise brands take the data and they do something with it. Right? With data comes great responsibility. I think that was in Spider-Man.
I think so too. think I saw that one. OK, so let’s see. We’ve kind of covered this, but just maintaining objectivity, why is that so critical to our mission? Well, I think that in terms of maintaining objectivity, ⁓ we’re not a pay to play, right? So we’ll get emails from a
PR firms or prospecting people who are like, how much does it cost to be featured on your website? And our response to that is always, you can’t pay to be featured on our website. You have to have satisfied franchisees. ⁓ And we do actually offer a free version of the survey where clients don’t actually get to take the data back. ⁓ But we want to make sure that the survey itself
and the awards option and the feature on our website is offered sort of universally. We don’t want there to be sort of a ceiling that impacts people from being a part of that. So we do encourage people to collect that data, of course, and I’m losing my train of thought a little No, but I think that’s a really good point. Every brand, every franchise brand out there can
work with Franchise Business Review can do a survey at no cost. ⁓ Yeah, and I actually had a brand this past year who had been chronically doing our free or snapshot survey for three or four years now. And this year, they finally got the budget to do the full version. And they were so excited. I had to stop them from adding 40 or so custom questions. was like, maybe half that, because we didn’t want them to sort of double the size of the survey overnight.
But they were so excited to finally be able to get that data back and start working with it. That’s so great. Yeah, so the ones that do it for free, like you said, don’t get the data back. And that’s where our services really step in. We’re giving you back the data. We’re going through with you. That’s what you end up paying for if you’re a franchise brand. But we’ll still do the survey. We still want your data so that when we do our rankings, top 200 brands.
top franchise brands for women, best franchises for culture, et cetera. They are based on a data set that is more expansive. It’s not just, ⁓ your brand had the money to pay. And so I don’t know. It definitely makes me feel good about working here, because I feel like our information that we offer is good information. There’s so much ickiness out there where you are like, can I trust this information?
Like you said, is it pay to play? Whether it’s like you want to find out what the best headphones are. And you’re like, well, is it real? Or did the person writing this review get gifted a bunch of stuff? And then I’m going to get these headphones, and I’m not going to be super thrilled about them. And the other piece of that is, of course, that our data is also dated. Yeah. Yes. It’s always within the last 18 months, brands who have not resurveyed their franchisees.
within the last 18 months can fall off awards in that way because it has to be current data. So it’s like, one, it’s not really a pay to play. You have to really show up and be a high quality franchise. And then two, your data has to be current. It has to be relevant if you’ve been going through some challenges and some changes and your scores are dropping and you fall off the awards list. That’s okay. Again, you can improve what you don’t measure and the brands who keep surveying when the scores are down are the brands who make it back onto the list.
Yeah. Yeah, and we do. is exciting when a brand makes it back on. They fall off, and then maybe they do some work inside their corporate team or across their franchisees, and then they kind of get back up in satisfaction. So OK. So let’s just kind of get at, if you’re listening to this, and if you are thinking about buying a franchise, why should you care?
about all of this stuff. About the What does the data tell people who are franchise curious that they might not learn? What does our data tell them that they might not learn elsewhere? Yeah. So I think that brands who are specifically ⁓ sharing their survey data, not all of the brands on our award-winning website, share their data. That’s part of a different program that we offer. But.
Those who are, when we pull those statistics, that sort of like 93 % of franchisees agree that they enjoy operating their business, ⁓ the brands with reports that you can download, those ⁓ statistics are usually catered towards the things that people want to see in a franchise. So if a brand has 10 top areas and they all look so great and we only choose three for their page, a lot of the times if franchisee community’s in there, if enjoy operating is in there,
And if something may be from core values, like I think the franchisor ⁓ operates with a high level of honesty and integrity. I respect them. I trust them. They care about my success. So those are the things where if they’re being highly rated in those areas, I want to make sure that they get featured for it because those are flags that people are looking for. They’re looking like, is it a supportive community? Does management care about more than the bottom line? Do people like operating this business? Do they like being a part of this organization? Yeah.
I think it’s ⁓ so interesting because you think about if you’re just interviewing for a random job, right? The chances are, maybe you’ll be lucky and you know somebody who already works at that place. And you can be like, hey, what’s it like to work there? What’s the culture like? But most of the time when you’re interviewing for a job, you’re trying to find out as much as you can. You’re asking questions during the interview process. But it’s kind of hard to really vet it. And I feel like this is like a job interview where, especially if
clients, if brands are sharing their full survey data, you can go in and really find out some more information. And obviously, our advice forever and ever and ever is to talk to franchisees and get in there. But this is a great first step, because it might rule out some brands where you’re like, I was really excited about that brand. And then I read their satisfaction data, and I was like, ⁓ I really stink at, ⁓ you know.
technology, and that franchise brand is rated really poorly in technology. So that’s not the right one for me, because I need way more support than that. So it’s that Intel, that inside scoop that at least gets you started in the right direction. ⁓ How should candidates, and when I say candidates, mean people who are considering buying a franchise, how should they use franchisee satisfaction data in their research? I kind of just answered that. Yeah, I guess.
I think that looking for those data points, deciding ⁓ what is it that you most need in a brand? Are you most looking for a strong community? Or is that not a problem to you? Are you most looking for ⁓ enjoying operating? Some people want to be sort of a silent operator. So are you most looking for people who enjoy operating? Those are the things that I would look for as I would think about what is it that you’re looking to value most.
in the experience as a candidate, and then find the statistics that align with your values in that. All right. So let’s kind of finish up with lessons from the field. So Maria’s out there. She’s in the field. She’s doing the surveys. She’s talking not just to our corporate ⁓ franchise brands and the operations people, but she’s also getting the chance to talk to franchisees.
What patterns do you notice among the strongest franchise systems? I I said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s people who are creating that feedback loop. It’s always going to be people who are regularly serving their franchisees and then also reflecting that data back to the franchisees saying, I heard that you loved X, Y, and Z. And I heard that you wanted to see improvement in A, B, and Z. And here are the initiatives that we’re going to use to tackle this. Sometimes there’s too many areas to tackle them all at once.
But being transparent about the moves that you are making makes them feel like their feedback matters. Otherwise, we get people who are saying, hey, I’ve completed the survey five years in a row, and I’ve never seen anything back. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing it? Right. am I doing this for? And it makes a difference. I mean, sometimes people are scared to survey because they’re like, it’s not a strong system. We had a lot of changes in leadership. We’ve been working really hard to build it back up from previous leadership, but we know we’re not going to be rated well.
And I always tell them that. I always tell them it shows in the open text and in the feedback when you’re surveying consistently and reflecting it back. It makes a huge difference. Those scores go up. The people feel heard. And that’s really sort of like the psychology of choice, right? Feeling like you had a hand in the decision makes you more likely to appreciate that decision. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great point. ⁓ What surprises people most when they learn about how the process works? ⁓
Sort of from the client side or from the candidate side? I think from the candidate side. I think it might just be that it’s actually anonymous. Yeah. It actually is. ⁓ Like I said, we don’t disclose who has or has not completed the survey. Clients do sometimes ask. And I always reiterate that that is the case. Every now and again, I’ll get a call from someone taking the survey. And they’re like, hey, I already took it. And I keep getting reminders. And I say, from us or from the brand?
And they say from the brand, and I wish they would stop. I’m feeling bothered. And I say, well, that’s actually part of our commitment to maintain anonymity. You submitted anonymously, and we’re not disclosing to them that you did. And I’ve never had anyone say, that’s terrible. They’re always like, oh, well, that’s OK then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re bugging me because they have no idea if I filled it out or not. Yeah, that’s a good point. Any memorable stories that illustrate the value of franchisee feedback? I think it’s always going to be the people who are
the candidates who are going to our website and seeing the report data and maybe reaching out to me about people who aren’t sharing their report data and asking me about these brands. And I say, actually, I can’t disclose whether or not we work with them because they’re not award-winning. So we really only push those brands who are award-winning. And in terms of scores, like 60 is average. But anything I’d say, like 80 and up, is excellent. Oh my gosh. And we have several brands that are 80 and up. mean, we have food brands that are 80.
brands all across. I I think about like I9 Sports. I think about Tutu School. think about who was I on the phone with just the other day? Rialana is like I just, my gosh. And I also love that you mentioned like if a brand surveys with us and they bomb, we don’t talk about it. No. Where I mean, as much as I love drama, that is not.
what FBR stands for. We’re not here to put brands on blasts. So we’re not out here going, this big brand that you all know and love, serve it as franchisees. And the franchisees are not happy. We’re not advertising that. You can pay attention as a candidate and see who is and who isn’t on this list. And you might even go to a big brand and say, do you have franchisee satisfaction data? Because I didn’t see you on FBR.
and they might have an answer for you and they might say, actually we do ⁓ and we just decided to not share it or whatever, whatever. They might have a whole thing for you, but you should definitely ask. ⁓ Even if you, because maybe you have your heart set on a certain brand and they’re nowhere to be found on franchisebusinessreview.com, still ask them about their franchisee satisfaction data and if they survey their franchisees. Because you might find some really illuminating responses. You might have them go, why would we do that? In which case,
red flag. Or you might have them go, we use somebody else. Not that anybody’s as good as FPR. Or they might say, we do it internally, which is kind an interesting thing, as we talked about, doing it internally. Might put the pressure on franchisees and might not make them feel as safe to answer honestly. ⁓ Or they might do it and they might just not be sharing it publicly, and then they can give the survey report to you on their own. Yeah. I mean, the other feature that I love
on our website is if you are someone where data is your deciding factor and you’re looking at our awards list and you’re looking at a brand who doesn’t currently share their data, rest assured, if they’re on our awards list, they have award-winning scores. Yes. That’s 100 % of the way that that works. But if you are looking for a brand where you can download a report, if you scroll all the way down, there’s a related franchisee slider. And those are generally linked to brands who are sharing a report that you can download. That’s a good point.
All right, Maria, last question. What do you hope that every franchise candidate understands about franchise business review after hearing this episode? That we’re really cool. That we believe in what we do and that we love what we do and we want to protect the franchisee experience and that we encourage ⁓ clients to use the data to improve. And that’s really what it’s about. That’s really what our mission is for. I love that. Yeah.
Franchisees, they are business owners in your community. They are small business owners. And we just want to support them. We want them to get the support that they need. We want people who are thinking about small business ownership to think of franchising as an option, to hear about the positives and the negatives, to hear about other franchisees’ experiences, and to learn about some of the amazing brands that we work with that care a lot.
about how happy their franchisees are. Yeah, it’s a pretty cool place to work, I have to say. Maria, you’ve been fantastic. Thank you all so much. Make sure you go to franchisebusinessreview.com. You can always check out our survey data, especially if you go to the top 200. Any of the brands that have Get Report next to them, you can read everything. You can read some of these open text responses even and see if you find any fun things. All right.
See y’all later.
