Franchisee Labor Issues and Quality of Service Considerations
By: Lance Winslow

Each franchise system must maintain a quality mantra to compete in today?s fierce market place. You do not take anything for granted; you fail to service your customer and your competition is beating down their door to provide what you had forgotten. You sink or swim on your ability to give good quality service each and every day. To do this you must have the right employees, who care and are well trained and when they smile, they had better mean it because customers will know if they don?t!

Having run a franchise system; The Car Wash Guys, CarwashGuys.com for many years, I can tell you not a day went by when I did not recite the quality and service mantra. I use to say to every new employee I met; ?What more important, quality or service?? They would know instinctively and yell ?BOTH!? Indeed I would say and give them a high-five.

In your company you no doubt have identified several ways to combat the labor issue and keep a team atmosphere. Another method may be utilizing a labor service especially in the beginning of your business. This could be a way of test-driving employees without making a commitment. It would also keep their payroll off your books while the business is getting established (taxes, workman's comp., etc.). It forces the labor company to be responsible for someone showing up for work and if they don't do a good job you are not required to pay for a bad employee.

A challenge for all of us in the future in any business will be maintaining the level of customer service and focus on the customer. These days customers demand more than ever before and there is also more competition than ever before; Bring it on!

This is the reason you must get your foot in the door with new customers, but maintaining this is critical and paramount. The customer is why we are able to be in business and what will keep us in business. As a Team you must constantly remind each other of this and share what creative ideas are being used to keep the customer happy so they will never have a reason to look else where for a supplier. Think on this in 2006.

Lance Winslow - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

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