One of the most popular types of businesses is franchising. A franchise refers to the authorization granted to an individual or group to represent and carry out commercial activities, such as marketing, selling products, or offering services.
When it comes to franchising a convenience retail business, 7-Eleven bears the most famous name in the industry. However, like any other franchise business, 7-Eleven also face complaints and challenges.
In this post, you’ll learn how to overcome franchise complaints associated with franchising 7-Eleven.
Determine if the Complaint is Valid
Franchise complaints may come from the store owner (such as lack of support), staff (like too much workload or salary complaints), and customers (not satisfied with a product or service). Whether you have a franchise complaint about 7-Eleven’s marketing strategies or the type of support you’re getting, an employee complaint, or a consumer complaint, it’s important to validate each complaint and find appropriate solutions as soon as possible.
Here are the advantages of validating franchise complaints:
- Resolve minor issues right away to avoid complicating the situation.
- Determine if you need the support of the upper management to handle a specific complaint.
- Avoid unwanted exposure of complaint to social media channels, like Facebook, that can degrade the reputation of your business.
- Improve the quality of services and gain customer loyalty.
Share Your Complaints
As a franchise owner of 7-Eleven, or an aspiring one, it’s a good idea to share your frustrations and complaints to 7-Eleven or the company itself. There’s no perfect franchise system, so you need to give your franchisor a chance to resolve any problem. Setting realistic expectations and goals is just as important as advancing your franchise knowhow.
Here’s what 7-Eleven promises to its franchisees:
- In order to become one of the best convenience stores in the industry, 7-Eleven guarantees world-class support.
- 7-Eleven franchise sends personal business consultants to all 7-Eleven stores twice a week.
Know more about the role of a 7-Eleven personal business consultant below.
Take Advantage of Your Business Consultant
A personal business consultant refers to a 7-Eleven employee who’s assigned to visit your convenience store twice a week. You can take advantage of this service to broaden your knowledge of the ins and outs of how 7-Eleven works.
Here are the vital roles of a 7-Eleven Business Consultant to help you successfully operate your business:
- Assists you in budget development and business planning for your store.
- Provides expert advice, assistance, and coaching on how to improve your business.
- Assists you with sales data analysis.
- Provides continual guidance and training on an ever-improving system.
- Promotes efficiency to maximize the profitability of your store.
Implement Customer Engagement Activities
Whether you’re already operating a 7-Eleven store, or you’re planning to turn your convenience store into a 7-Eleven franchise, customer engagement is very important. You might receive consumer complaints and even see posts on social media about the products and services you fail to deliver or maintain. But these situations shouldn’t hinder you from growing your business.
As a franchise owner, you can implement the following strategies to handle consumer complaints properly:
- Place a consumer complaint ‘drop box’ where customers can write and drop their complaints.
- Create a complaint form or template to rate the quality of products, staff service, store environment, and marketing methods.
- Interview your loyal customers and ask about the things they love and hate about your store.
- Resolve consumer complaints immediately whenever possible. Train your store manager and staff to handle various types of buyer personas properly.
Create a Complaint Resolution Plan or Workflow
While 7-Eleven provides 100% support when it comes to business operations, you also need to create your version of a complaint resolution workflow based on the demographics, the location, and the nature of the most common franchise complaints you receive.
Here are the benefits of creating a complaint resolution workflow:
- Train your staff to follow specific guidelines when faced with a customer complaint, like replacing spilled Slurpee on the floor because of a wet floor or unlabeled hazard.
- Resolve franchise complaints as soon as possible to avoid escalating the problem.
- Show customers that you prioritize their satisfaction by offering different resolution options.
Conclusion
Identifying the validity of a franchise complaint is crucial before taking any action. One of the best ways to overcome franchise complaints is to create a resolution plan or a team to resolve issues immediately.
If you can’t handle the problem, always seek the help of your 7-Eleven family. The company can help you by sending a business consultant to check the overall status of your business and provide expert recommendations as needed.
Once you’re more knowledgeable and skilled to handle your business, you’ll realize that addressing your customers’ complaints is a perfect opportunity to improve your service.
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