Franchising your restaurant can be an extremely profitable venture for you. If run correctly, franchises can earn large amounts of money for the franchisee and the franchiser that they would not have originally.
Moreover, the restaurant can become a household name and will expand to more locations to serve numerous customers.
However, franchises have many challenges. One of the most difficult is maintaining quality in every location. Franchising requires consistency and uniformity. This means that food must be prepared and served in a standardized way and coupons and discounts cannot be offered to individual locations.
The most important thing to consider is that the franchisee and franchiser will both need to work together in order to make it a success. But how do you maintain the same level of quality in a national or international chain? We’ll explore these possibilities today!
The Key is Training
One way to make this possible is by training all employees carefully. The franchisee will be required to maintain certain standards such as set recipes, standardized equipment and even inventory control. This means that each location must hire its own staff members who can be given proper training for this purpose.
These employees can be taught to prepare the dishes in a uniformed way and how to deal with unique orders. The franchisee must be present during this training which will ensure that quality control is maintained at all times.
Training also shouldn’t end when the restaurant is up and running. There should be regular reskilling and upskilling activities to make sure that each member of the staff know what they are doing.
In addition, the franchiser can provide online courses for employees to complete after work hours which will allow them to continue their training and become more qualified in keeping with standards. The franchisee also needs to hire staff that is loyal and well-qualified in order to maintain this continuity and consistency.
Hire Skilled Workers and Pay Them Well
You must choose staff members who not only meet all requirements, but are highly skilled. Workers who will be able to maintain consistency in food preparation and service should be prioritized in the hiring process. They should also be compensated generously to attract quality hires and retain them for years to come.
The downfall of many restaurant chains is the staff. Those who receive minimum wage are obviously less motivated to work and give customers a positive experience because they don’t feel that they’re valued and rightly compensated. If you treat employees well, they’ll treat your customers even better.
Do Inspections Every Once in a While
The franchiser will need to do inspections of franchise restaurants to ensure that the quality is upheld. These inspections will be on a regular basis and can even include surprise visits from time to time. This is the only way that consistency in food preparation and service can truly be maintained across all franchise locations.
A field inspection company will be able to help maintain uniformity in the food preparation process and consistency in customer experience in every site to reduce chances of loss of customers due to location-specific issues.
Monitor Social Media Sites
Social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram can give a peek into the experience of your customers in every restaurant. Customers typically post photos and videos of their food as well as share reviews of businesses online for their friends, family, and public to see.
It will be easier to track this information on numerous social media sites rather than visiting each restaurant. If you find that customers are complaining about service or food at a particular location, then it’s time for a field inspection company to check into the problem and solve it once and for all!
You can check your restaurant’s hashtag or monitor tagged posts to see what customers are saying about the business.
Maintain Cleanliness
Another way to maintain the same level of quality is by keeping up with cleanliness standards. Every restaurant needs to be well-maintained and hygienic at all times. This includes proper cleaning of equipment, dishes, floors, walls and surfaces throughout the day.
A franchise empire becomes harder to maintain the bigger it gets, but it’s possible. There are many ways that these restaurant chains can maintain the same level of quality in every location.
These are only some tips that can help food and beverage businesses to maintain its standards and become a success in the field of franchising despite serving a bigger number of customers every day in different parts of the country.