6 Tools To Promote Brand Consistent Reputation Management for Franchises
Today, there are over 750,000 franchises in the US. The franchise model is one of the most successful business models with historically higher success rates over any independent small business. Much of that success has to do with brand consistency, according to the International Franchise Association (IFA), “maintaining and strengthening brand identity… is vital to franchise success”.
When most people think of brand consistency, they think of consistent marketing. But these days, your reputation is one of the most important marketing tools a brand has. A brand’s online reputation can be found in its reviews, social media comments, and other forms of user-generated content. When the reputation of an entire brand is formed by customers at individual locations, the need for reputation management is critical for franchise model brands. Here are 6 tools to help promote brand consistent reputation management for franchises.
[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]When the reputation of an entire brand is formed by customers at individual locations, the need for reputation management is critical for franchise model brands.[/tweet_box]
#1 – Review Monitoring & Response Templates
Monitoring reviews at every location is one of the best ways to protect your brand’s reputation. Multi-location brands can receive 100’s of reviews across dozens of review sites if you’re not monitoring and responding to your reviews, those negative reviews could be hurting your reputation.
Creating response templates is one of the easiest ways to protect brand consistency when responding to reviews across all franchise locations. Response templates keep the brand’s voice consistent and protect franchisees from making costly mistakes by responding to reviews inappropriately. Chatmeter allows users to create custom response templates and respond to reviews in bulk. With features like rotating templates and merge codes, responding to 100’s of reviews at every location is a breeze.
#2 – Social Media Monitoring and Publishing
Managing social media for multiple franchise locations is never easy. Even with consistent marketing posts, monitoring the comments and mentions across all franchise locations can be a daunting task. One bad comment or viral post can spread like wildfire and quickly ruin a brand’s reputation. Chatmeter’s Social Suite is designed to help multi-location brands monitor, comment, and publish social posts.
In addition to social media monitoring, Chatmeter’s Social Suite also monitors the Google Questions and Answers section on your local business listings. Google Q&A relies on user-generated questions and answers. User-generated content is one of the biggest threats to brand consistency. Keep the information about your brand consistent at every location by answering questions before unknowing consumers do.
#3 – Local Web Pages
A website is a vital part of any business and franchises are no exception. Adding local pages to the brand’s website is the perfect way to create brand-consistent location web pages for franchises.
Local pages are the perfect place for franchises & chains to tell their more intimate local story. By integrating with local social accounts and creating location-specific content to share on these pages, franchisees can optimize their location pages for local search. The best part, Chatmeter’s local pages are built onto your existing website keeping the design, messaging, and overall branding consistent from page to page.
#4 – Text Analytics
When it comes to keeping the reputation of franchise brands safe, brands need to ensure the customer experience at every location is consistent. Chatmeter’s text analytics tool, Pulse, analyzes reviews and social comments to discover the true sentiment of every review. This helps brands to ensure every franchise location is delivering the expected customer experience. If there is a problem at a single location, Pulse can help you identify that. Our store comparison chart identifies which locations have more negative sentiment tied to their reviews.
Text analytics also help to decipher whether or not new campaigns are working and whether a brand should deploy those campaigns for every franchise. Getting insight into customer wants and needs is essential to the ongoing success of every franchise.
#5 – Task Management
In order to brand consistency across all franchise locations, you need to establish an easy collaboration process between corporate, the franchisors and every location. Chatmeter’s Workflow is the perfect solution to help franchise brands approve, escalate, and accomplish tasks without hiccups.
Workflow is specifically designed to help multi-location brands monitor and respond to reviews, social media mentions, and fix listing errors. The real-time alerts give brands the power to get in front of conversations about their brand no matter where they take place.
#6 – Reputation-Focused KPI’s
It’s important to set and hit reputation-focused KPI’s at every location. Chatmeter’s Local Brand Visibility (LBV) score is specifically designed to help multi-location brands score their efforts against industry benchmarks or custom set KPI’s in-line with their own brand standards. This helps franchisors see if the efforts they are making in-store and in the Chatmeter platform are successful. By establishing brand-wide benchmarks it promotes brand consistent results across all franchises.
Brand consistent reputation management is something franchises consistently have to work towards. With all the user-generated content found in reviews, Google Q&A, and social media mentions, creating brand-consistent responses is not always easy. Beyond that, keeping both the online and in-store experience consistent takes commitment as well. Chatmeter’s all-in-one local SEO and reputation management platform is the ultimate solution for franchisees looking to protect their brand consistency.