In recent years, a large donut brand found itself in court, seeking to compel several of its franchisees to meet the company’s brand standards as required under the franchise agreement. Eventually, the court sided with the company, but only after years of uncertainty and the expense of employee hours and attorney hours.
The decision is significant because it demonstrates that a franchisor has the right to enforce compliance with the company’s standards beyond health and safety requirements. However, even though the courts can give protection to franchisors and their brands, lawsuits are an extreme and costly “solution” that everyone would like to avoid.
There is a better way for franchisors and franchisees to ensure brand standards compliance. Here are a few solutions that will save you time and money along the way:
Better Policy Access Means Better Compliance
As a franchisor, you probably have a quality management plan and processes in place for franchisees. In the very least, you should make sure everyone has access to your standards and policies, perhaps in the form of binders or other paper documents. Access to these documents is key to basic transparency. But finding policies and standards amidst stacks of papers puts a large and unnecessary burden on everyone. Making your regulatory policies and brand standards available digitally is a great first step. Searchable PDFs will help, but a comprehensive quality management software offers several ways to manage documents as well as other tools that help manage franchisees.
Franchisor’s Brand Protects Franchisee’s Bottom Line
As a franchisee, you are putting your hard-earned dollars into purchasing a franchise license. The franchisor sets the standards, but it’s up to you, the local franchise owner, to implement their standards. Ultimately, it’s in your best interest to keep your locations in compliance.
The cost of a single incident in one of your stores could have a long-term, negative impact on your business. Aside from failing brand compliance audits, your customers may start looking at your local brand differently and stop spending their money with you. The cost of implementing the right systems to manage and control your food, health, and safety compliance is small compared to the cost of litigation and lost business.
Old Problems Solved with New Solutions
“We can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
— Albert Einstein
Going through the motions and using the same tools you’ve been using for years will not solve compliance problems. It’s dollar to donuts that most franchisees want to follow regulatory and brand standards, but both franchisors and franchisees need better communication and more effective tools to get there.
Traditional pen-and-paper checklists and Excel spreadsheets only measure a single assessment at a single location. It’s difficult to compile manually gathered data and turn it into meaningful reporting, which means it’s difficult to get a “big picture” view of one location or your entire business. However, with the right quality management software, each assessment can supply new insights for your business. Whether you’re a franchisor or franchisee, meaningful analytics and reporting are just a few clicks away. Additionally, you can automate corrective action and follow-up, and you can create a “single source of truth” that is accessible from the corporate office to the newest store location with comprehensive document management.
When you’re ready to make the switch to digital solutions, read “4 Key Components of a Food Safety and Quality Management System” to help you find a software solution that’s right for you.