Brand standards span broad areas of a retail or hospitality network, including branding, customer service, product assortment, preferred vendors, merchandising, cleanliness, human resources, security, loss prevention and fire prevention. They govern how the business should be presented, and how programs should be implemented.
Most retail and hospitality groups communicate and expect franchisees and managers to adhere to brand standards.
Executed properly, brand standards turn every franchisee into a brand ambassador.
Professional Tasks and Site Inspections
The EXECUTION OF BRAND STANDARDS HAS MANY BENEFITS
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- Drive sales through in-store merchandising
- Drive the brand forward through consistent execution of branding and positioning
- Protect the brand
- Protect your customers and employees’ health and safety
- Increase customer satisfaction. Customers have a way of thanking stores and sites that are well run: they come back!
The most successful brands all share one trait: they execute better than the competition. Don’t be held back by misconceptions. Put the focus on the execution of brand standards, better run and more profitable locations and franchisees.
Seems simple, or is it?
On the surface, the issue is simple. Simply publish the standards, place them on the company intranet, send them to franchisees. Add some training. Do all of that and brand standards will be followed, right?
Is anything ever that easy?
There are reasons why measuring brand standards is critical to achieving brand standards. Let’s dive in.
Training is not sufficient
Training is essential but training alone does not guarantee brand standards are followed. Store staff may be trained, answer the quiz, and pass the test, but are they applying their learned skills where it matters, enhancing the customer experience?
Your objective is not to train for the sake of training. Your objective is to deliver a superlative product and service. Are you delivering and executing on brand standards for each and every guest and customer? How will you know, unless you measure it?
Training is necessary but not sufficient.
Measuring Brand Standards engages franchisees
Measurement engages owners/franchisees by continually reinforcing brand standards and best practices. Measuring compliance is not a passive activity. It actively engages the store owner or franchisee to continually refer to the brand standard, the “perfect score”, the “best practice” and set the location on the path of continuous improvement.
Measuring Brand Standards shapes operations
Measurement in electronic form allows head office to turn the data into actionable information: spot trends, problems areas, improvements and repeat unacceptables. Bindy customers often update programs and standards in response to the field evidence they have collected. Perhaps additional training is needed in specific areas or new standards or guidelines need to be adopted.
Measuring gives head office “eyes on the ground” and shapes your operations road map.
Measuring Brand Standards Boosts the customer experience
Brand standards are not a “feel good” thing. They mean leaner, cleaner and more efficient stores. Customers have a way of thanking stores that are clean and efficient, they come back! Brand standards is the reason your customers come back, or not. Make sure you measure them.
Measuring Brand Standards boosts sales
Market research suggests non-compliance with in-store programs is costing the retail industry 1% of gross sales. Just like measurement breeds compliance, compliance breeds sales. Read more on the cost of non-compliance.
You Need to MEASURE Brand Standards
Rather than treat operating procedures and auditable items are two separate buckets, switch your approach to “inspect what you expect”. Treat the standard being documented and communicated as the same standard used for the audit, verification and correction.
Communication and execution of programs and standards are on the same spectrum. Successful brands build workflows around the principle of continuous learning and validation.
Measure what you communicate so brand standards are communicated, reinforced, and measured using a consistent scale.
Measurements also enable analytics and reporting at head-office to help manage the business and drive the brand forward.
excel is Holding you Back
Using Excel and email for brand standards is slow, error-prone, and labor-intensive. It also deprives the organization of the analytics it needs to make informed business decisions.
Excel is not a management system and will not help you achieve brand standards at scale. It is not helping your business, it’s holding it back.
Mystery Shopping Is Not Enough
A district manager visit is educational and preventive in nature. This process ensures the locations are efficient, safe, profitable and customer ready. This is essential because, unlike mystery shopping, a District Manager led visit can vet operations and prevent problems before they happen.
The district manager isn’t strictly inspecting the outcome, they are checking that the process itself is conducive to a successful outcome.
A positive customer experience does not happen in vacuum. It happens when all parts of the operations machine are functioning individually and together well.
A mystery shopping program is not a substitute for internal communication and inspection programs.
The Final Word
Brand standards have many benefits including higher sales, higher margins, health and safety, and improved customer experience. But if you want to achieve them, you have to be prepared to measure, track and remedy them. This virtuous cycle of compliance will make your retail and hospitality business leaner, more profitable and boost guest and customer satisfaction, recommendations and 5 star reviews.
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