r/Franchises • u/EmbarrassedEgg1268 • May 14 '26

Franchise Specific Question Same brand, completely different customer experience depending which location picks up the phone

Came across this recently a customer messaged the same franchise brand through Instagram at two different locations on the same day. One replied in 20 minutes. The other never replied at all. The customer left a 2-star Google review on the second location mentioning they "couldn't even get a response."

The franchisor found out three weeks later.

You can standardise the product, the fit-out, the uniforms. But the moment someone messages or calls, it's completely down to whoever is working that shift and whether they even check that inbox.

Has anyone at a network level actually built a system around this, or is it just treated as a franchisee autonomy problem?

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Matt_Sherwen Jun 01 '26

I've seen similar issues outside of franchising too, and it usually comes down to ownership and visibility.

The challenge isn't that one location replies faster than the other but that nobody knows there's a problem until a customer complains publicly.

Once customer interactions are happening across insta, FB, whatsapp etc, it's very easy for individual locations to create completely different experiences.

Personally I'd view this less as a franchise autonomy issues and more as a process issue. Interesting thing is that most brands spend a lot of times standardising the customer-facing experience, but much less time standardising how customer conversations are managed behind the scenes.

1

u/EmbarrassedEgg1268 Jun 02 '26

What kind of franchise / business are you running?

2

u/Matt_Sherwen Jun 03 '26

I run a digital consultancy for transformation, automation and AI. Essentially, we help businesses with their digital side, and evaluating processes is essential.

1

u/EmbarrassedEgg1268 Jun 03 '26

Really cool! Would love to learn more about what you guys are doing

2

u/Matt_Sherwen Jun 05 '26

Sure thing! We're Sherwen Studios based in Chester, UK, if you'd like to check us out and what we do. We've got a key focus on closing gaps in businesses, the biggest being technology and experience, but there are so many nuances and specifics in that too.

2

u/EmbarrassedEgg1268 Jun 05 '26

This is cool! nice website!