Franchise Development Website Guide: Checkers & Rally's

Name: Ursula Lane

Brand: Checkers* & Rally’s

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/checkers-&-rally%E2%80%99s-drive-in-restaurants/

About Your Brand: Based in Tampa, Fla., Checkers & Rally's Restaurants, Inc., an iconic and innovative drive-thru restaurant chain known for its "Crazy Good Food," exceptional value, and people-first attitude, operates and franchises both Checkers® and Rally's® restaurants. With more than 870 restaurants and room to grow, Checkers & Rally's is a proven brand with flexible building formats that is aggressively expanding across the country. Checkers& Rally's is dedicated to being a place where franchisees and employees who work hard can create opportunity for themselves, their families, and their communities. In recent years, the brand has been awarded several of the industry's most prestigious awards including ranking #140 on Entrepreneur's 2018 Franchise 500, Top Food and Beverage Franchise by Franchise Business Review, 2016 and 2017 Best Franchise Deals, "Best Drive-Thru in America" by QSR Magazine, the "Hot! Again" award from Nation's Restaurant News, and "#1 Most Craveable Fries" by Restaurant Business. For more information about franchise opportunities with Checkers & Rally's, please visit www.checkersfranchising.com.     

Franchise Development Website: www.checkersfranchising.com

What makes your franchise development site great? 

Checkers & Rally’s franchising website is not only informative and visually appealing to potential franchise owners but it was designed to be educational, engaging, and user-friendly.  Current performance and key ownership data is highlighted throughout the site; the franchise ownership process is clearly defined; current company and franchise related press is featured on the site, and the franchise inquiry form is concise and accessible at multiple touch points.  In addition, the site is balanced with images of franchisees, current creative assets including the food and restaurant building formats, etc.

What do you want franchise prospects to know about your brand when researching it? 

Checkers & Rally’s is a proven and growing brand that focuses on serving bold & flavorful food and we are committed to operations that drive restaurant profitability which aligns us with our franchisees.  We are constantly innovating — from a price-engineered menu that is current with our guests/consumer tastes to implementing state of the art technology that improves the efficiencies of restaurant operations to introducing a new modular restaurant building that boosts quicker development schedules and offers price certainty. 

As Operators, we test all of our new product and initiatives at company restaurants before rolling them out to our franchise community… we put our franchisees first!  Despite our system achievements including seven consecutive years of same-store sales growth and a record 50 new restaurant openings in 2017, we still have plenty of room to grow.  Checkers & Rally’s is on a mission of growth with a goal of 1200 restaurants by 2020.  We welcome multi-unit franchisees who want to achieve their financial and growth goals faster to join our franchise family.

How should franchise sales professionals and executives evaluate their development site? 

A development site should be evaluated based on qualitative standards such as the ease of use per the end-user point of view and the right mix of information via text and graphics as well as quantitative metrics such as conversions, Google Analytics results (traffic, SEO), etc.

What are the most important KPIs around a development site? 

The foremost KPI is the conversion rate of new leads (submission of the inquiry form per franchise ownership). Traffic, engagement, etc. are all important indicators as well.

What should brands budget for a franchise development site? 

Minimum $40K to $50K