Julianna Voyles, Director of Operations of Jeremiah’s Italian ice (90+ locations) and Deric Rosenbaum, President of Groucho's Deli (30+ locations), shared their perspectives on investing in frontline training technology at the 2023 Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit.
We summarized their discussion with Opus CEO and Co-founder Rachael Nemeth below.
6 Reasons Why Frontline Training Technology is the Key for Franchisors
1. Quickly train on new offerings that drive sales
“Our locations who have the highest LTO (limited time offer) percentages, who have the highest sales are the ones who completed the training module that we put out there.” - Julianna, Jeremiah's Italian Ice
2. Action on the insights you can now glean from marketing and data tools
“What's the opportunity cost if you don't (invest in frontline tech)? If you take your other tech tools, like your feedback mechanisms, your reputation management, and your CDPs, and use that data is telling you almost in real time, you can identify problems within hours. Then taking a tool like Opus, you can republish that segment of knowledge back to that store to them. So you have to use all these tools together to get true metrics.” - Deric, Groucho’s Deli
3. Help franchisees reduce the labor hours spent on training (Btw, labor account for 2/3 of training costs)
“We are a hybrid model. So if it's five-star service, they're going to watch our five-star service video, we have a five-star service flowchart they can read, and then they're going to role-play it with a trainer. So that's how we're ensuring consistency across the brand. We're linking what you do need to do face to face with what we can provide our franchisees through technology.” - Julianna, Jeremiah's Italian Ice
4. Maintain standards while respecting the franchisee relationship
“As a franchisor, we always have to be cognizant of joint employer liability. So for us, we focus on training the trainer. With Opus, we're going to provide them with the tools they need, the content they need, and it's going to constantly evolve. We're going to set the expectations with this information and maintain our standards this way.” - Deric, Groucho’s Deli
5. Make training stick with video content — it’s now easier than ever to create
“We had a new rollout of our menus and we needed training videos. We didn't have time to depend on marketing, so they made nine different TikTok videos. [TikTok] is just a video platform that has some great editing skills. It was something really special that we were able to use, and also our team members think that's fun. And now we've encouraged another kind of way for them to get involved.” - Julianna, Jeremiah's Italian Ice
6. Don’t wait to invest — you’re paying for it now
“As a franchisor, I have to be cognizant of adding costs to my franchisees and show the real value. But you're going to pay now or you're going to pay later— it’s a physical monetary cost and time cost up front, or your customer experience on the backside.” - Deric, Groucho’s Deli
