4 Features to Look for in Modern Franchise Software Systems

Jun 19,2019 By javed

Today’s post runs down 4 features your franchise software system needs in 2019. If your current system lacks even one of these essential features, you’re at a serious disadvantage. Read on to learn why.

Automated workflows

Workflow automation is one of the main selling points for franchise software systems, and rightfully so.

By automating repetitive tasks like welcome emails, support ticket updates, and data entry, you free up staff faculties for more important duties, like closing sales and developing the brand.

This not only makes better use of your employees’ time, but also boosts morale and engagement, since everyone’s work day gets inherently more interesting when they’re focused on higher-level tasks. Wouldn’t you rather be interacting with people or problem-solving than inputting lead contact details all day?

Our franchise software system lets you design and implement custom workflows that are tailored to your unique needs. Map processes and set triggers to automatically welcome new leads, update contact details, generate reports, and handle any other low-value tasks you need to convert into free-running operations. We designed our solution to work for any business model, which means serious end-user control.

Source tracking

Tracking the source of your leads is imperative because it directly informs your marketing campaign decisions. If you don’t know where your leads are coming from, you’re just throwing darts in the dark. In this case, darts mean marketing dollars.

Source tracking is particularly important because most franchisors run lead generation campaigns across multiple platforms simultaneously. Without source tracking capabilities, this strategy isn’t practical.

Any time new leads are inputted into the system–manually or automatically–FranchiseSoft instantly tags their source. From the Directory, you can search or sort leads by their source and effectively evaluate your marketing at a glance.

Integration

Like we said, FranchiseSoft was built to work for any franchise business model. Part of that means serious end-user control and customization potential. But equally important is software integration.

All franchisors use different software tools in tandem. Unlike many other brands on the market, our franchise software system plays nice with others, and actually makes your existing software more efficient by organizing all the displaced data in a centralized location. We designed our solution to integrate seamlessly with Intuit, QuickBooks, DocuSign, Authorize.net, and much more–get in touch with a member of our team for a complete list of synergistic software pairings.

Centralized communications

In the Digital Age, there are dozens of ways to get ahold of someone. Suppose you needed to tell an employee that their client moved a service appointment from 4:00PM to 6:00PM. You could call, email, text, ping them through WhatsApp, go “face-to-face” with a Skype or FaceTime call, send a messenger pigeon…

The options for communication are endless, but so too are the excuses. “Your text must not have gone through!” or “Your email got caught in the Spam folder!” are some of the usual suspects. More communication channels also means more room for missed messages. To some people, checking their email inbox is as natural as breathing; to others, it’s a weekly chore. People have different communication preferences, and trying the wrong channel can lead to some big missed opportunities. In our example, it could mean a wasted trip for an employee, who could moved another appointment up and used that time to complete a job instead!

So how do you get a hold of this employee? Do you send him a single message on a single channel and hope they check in time? Or do you turn a small task into a big one and message them across every known communication channel to be safe?

Ideally, neither: our franchise software system centralizes all communications, so that you can reach out to any employee via any communication channel from the FranchiseSoft platform.

This not only improves communication channels, but also increases staff accountability–when all communications are canalized through FranchiseSoft, there’s no excuse for missed memos.