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Operating a franchise today comes with a slew of challenges, from competing with corporate chains and online competition, to customer and employee satisfaction. But each of these challenges can be addressed by getting your business communications strategy right. Read on to learn more about the key success strategies franchises can implement to mitigate their business challenges and position themselves for success.
Success Strategy 1: Communicate How Customers Want
A recent survey of US consumers found that 93% want the option to talk and text with small businesses. If you have a phone sitting on your desk, chances are, customers are trying to text you – and not getting a response. Or they’re texting your employees’ personal mobile devices – which means that the conversation thread disappears whenever your staff turnover. Optimizing your franchise communications to support text messaging is essential for how consumers communicate today.
Strategy in Action: Business Texting
Business Texting is a way to send and receive text messages from a business landline phone number, via a third-party app. It means that you can keep your existing phone service, but enhance it with text messaging. Beyond business texting, you’ll want to enable your employees to text with clients from their own mobile devices, but on your own system – so customer text messages stay within your business. Look for a solution that combines Business Texting and texting for your employees for best results.
Success Strategy 2: Stay Ahead of Customer Queries
According to Hubspot, almost 2/3 of customers expect a response to any marketing, sales or customer service inquiries within 10 minutes. So if someone is calling or texting your business, you need to get back to them stat. But if you’re just starting your franchise, or have a small team, meeting that KPI can be a challenge when you’re all-hands-on-deck.
Strategy in Action: Shared Company Numbers and Auto-Replies
Solutions that let you share phone numbers with your team mean that you can see every call and text that comes in. The first available member of your team can answer those calls and texts for faster responses.
Another valuable tool is text auto-replies. When customer calls or texts come in and you’re on the line or unavailable, you don’t want to leave them hanging. Here, text auto-replies are the unsung hero of your team – you can program the texts you’d like sent in various scenarios, and the app takes care of the rest.
Success Strategy 3: Deliver Always-On Responsiveness with Work-from-Anywhere Tech
According to Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans own a mobile phone of some kind – and 85% have smartphones. This means that your target consumer can communicate with whoever they want, whenever they want – and they expect that you do, too. The fact is, if they can’t get a hold of you, they’ll get a hold of someone else – so you need to be able to take your business communications with you.
Strategy in Action: Move to the Cloud
Cloud-based business communications solutions with apps let you leverage your own computers and mobile devices to respond to inbound customer calls and queries. Whether you’re at your franchise, at home, on vacation, or virtually anywhere else, having your business communications system on an app lets you respond from anywhere.
With Cloudli TalkNText™, these three franchise success strategies can be addressed and implemented today. Even better, franchisees can save up to 70% over industry-leading voice and messaging providers with one monthly subscription with Cloudli TalkNText™, a new mobile-first service that equips franchises with unified voice and Business Texting capabilities. Check out Cloudli TalkNText™ and sign up for a free trial today!