The Trickle-Down Effect A Strong Franchisor-Franchisee Relationship Has On Consumer Experience

Franchise brands have a wide variety of cultural priorities, values and work philosophies, but everyone can agree that the customer experience is paramount to any franchise’s financial success and longevity. For this reason, it’s important for franchisors and franchisees to have a good working relationship with each other, as it can only help lead to a positive consumer experience. 

According to Laura Sappington, COO of sports-based children’s enrichment franchise TGA Premier Sports, passion, integrity, communication and resilience are integral to creating a successful franchisor-franchisee dynamic.

“We are all working towards a common goal,” Sappington wrote in an email. “If we don’t share the same goal, our efforts may lead to counter-productivity and slow down our progress as a whole.” 

As a brand that caters to children, it is especially important that TGA Premier Sports has a good relationship with its franchisees, Sappington noted. What unites the brand’s corporate team and franchisees, she explained, is the “shared passion of making sports accessible for kids” and the desire to make a positive impact on people and in communities. 

“This passion drives us to provide the highest-quality programming for our students,” Sappington said. “Our integrity means doing the right thing, always, and being cognizant that we truly have the privilege to work with the youth of future generations. Our shared resilience enables us to keep fighting for the purpose of enriching lives. With open communication between headquarters and franchisees, we continue to evolve and become stronger together each day.”  

In order to foster this positive experience for children, the TGA Premier Sports leadership team provides several tools for its franchisees. This includes a solid curriculum that incorporates athletics, academics and life lessons to create fun and engaging youth programs.

“We support our franchisees with all the tools to make them successful, from the initial sell-in with school districts through execution of their programs,” Sappington said. “These tools include ongoing back-end support, marketing collateral, guidance in forming partnerships within their community and training guidance for their staff and coaches. This support ensures a franchisee the ability to provide superior customer experience for students and parents alike.” 

For indoor kart racing franchise K1 Speed, a successful relationship between the franchisor and franchisees starts during the discovery process when the brand interviews prospective franchisees. The K1 Speed leadership team strongly believes in relationship building—not sales—and invests a lot of time in making sure it’s going to be a good fit both ways, Director of Global Franchising Howard Picker said. It comes down to the prospective franchisee’s energy and passion and the past experiences they can bring to the table, he said. 

“We’re not just talking to just anybody,” Picker said. “We want to know where they’ve come from, the things that they’ve done, their experience and how they might fit into the culture that we have at K1 Speed.”

The customer experience begins long before a customer even walks through the door, and it’s important that everyone involved in a K1 Speed franchise understands that from the get-go, Picker said. K1 Speed stays involved in the hiring process and trains franchisees on what to look for in candidates for jobs at their franchise location to help ensure an excellent customer experience. This level of support provided to franchisees before, during and after their openings helps maintain the high-touch service element that Picker credits with fueling brand growth to this point. 

“We train our people to be very attentive to our customers,” Picker said. “I think it’s a credit to our culture, our success and what we’ve built in this particular industry. Based on our experience and where we are right now—we’re the largest in the world at what we do—something is definitely working and, again, it’s about the people that are involved in our system. It’s about the relationships we establish initially upfront and then we help the franchisee carry that down into their own centers and keep that symbiotic relationship going.” 

Happy customers are crucial to the financial health of a franchise. For this reason, brands must lay the groundwork for a successful consumer experience long before said consumer walks through the door, and the best way to do so is through an open and productive franchisor-franchisee relationship. By fostering positive relationships with franchisees and making sure they have all of the tools they need to succeed, brand leadership teams will only help to create a positive customer experience.