As they say, communication is key, and it is true in a number of scenarios. Whether it’s talking to employees, shift leaders, managers, or even managing multi-location franchises, communication can help lead to the success of any business by making sure all of the necessary information is getting to who it needs to.
Franchises that have multiple locations often struggle with keeping every one of them on the same page. From making sure that promotions and deals are set to go off at every location on the same day, ensuring products are fully stocked, or hosting onboarding and training sessions, it’s crucial for multi-location franchises to scale without the fear of losing their image or identity.
Digital signage plays a huge role in the performance of many businesses because it can boost employee engagement, ensure brand consistency, and help improve internal communications. Let’s see just how having the proper content management system (CMS) can make a difference in the success at any location of any franchise!
Why is Digital Signage a Must for Franchises? The Positive Effect of This Form of Technology in the Business World
Digital signage can play a huge role in the success of a franchise starting with improving staff morale!
Digital signage can play a huge role in how staff communicate with each other and boost engagement across all franchise locations. Image courtesy of Valotalive.
When choosing to install digital signage into franchise locations, not only is it a great way to engage with customers through bright, eye-catching content you can create in a CMS platform, but it can be a good way to boost staff morale. The success of any franchise not only relies on sales from customers, but also the happiness and morale of staff.
Streamlines Operations to Staff
One of the many reasons why digital signage can lead to the success of franchises is because it makes it an easier way to streamline operations to staff across many locations. Digital signage can help to eliminate unnecessary costs of printing and distributing physical paper-posters and paying someone to post them across multiple locations. Instead, digital signage can be updated in real-time to reflect anything from company news, employee spotlights, HR updates, and be an effective way to get essential information across without having to constantly check email or a work phone.
Improves Employee Morale
Having employees that feel valued at their job will in return make them want to show up more with a positive attitude. Digital signage can be a great and simple way to give recognition to your staff who deserve it the most. You can celebrate anything from someone taking over a shift of someone who called off, going above and beyond for a customer, choosing an employee of the month, celebrating a work anniversary, or simply shouting out someone for their birthday. This is an effective way to create a positive workplace culture and make staff feel comfortable, appreciated, and valued for the work they do.
Ensures Safety Compliance
No matter the franchise, every one of them has their own safety compliances that are important for staff to follow. Keeping the same safety standards and compliances consecutive across every location is crucial to ensure that all staff are safe throughout the day. From simple reminders to wash your hands when coming back from break, communication about updated safety training to look out for, and even posting emergency updates and evacuation routes is crucial to keep all staff safe no matter which location they work at.
Consistent Brand Messaging
Carrying your brand’s message across all franchise locations is crucial and digital signage can be a great way to do so. With the use of strategic and consistent messaging within a franchise, it helps to create a unified brand identity that involves their mission, vision, and values no matter if one location is on a national level or another one is global. Digital signage can be updated with real-time updates and changes can instantly reflect all franchise locations to ensure that customers receive the same services and treatment regardless of which store they are located at.
Don’t Lose Brand Identity With Top-Notch Digital Signage Methods and Tactics
Staying consistent with brand ideologies and identity in a franchise shouldn’t be difficult with the help of digital signage!
Maintaining an effective brand consistency is important for franchises as it helps them to scale and grow within multiple locations. Image courtesy of Visual Best.
Handling multiple franchise locations the old-fashioned way can take a long time to effectively get every one of them on the same page. Brand consistency is crucial for franchises to maintain the same level of training, safety, and customer satisfaction for multiple locations, and digital signage can be an effective method to improve this area.
Use Branded Templates With Franchise Logo, Colors, and Font
First thing’s first, having access to a reliable CMS platform to create content that can be easily distributed to all franchise locations is crucial. CMS platforms allow you to create content that can be edited, modified, and published remotely to all franchise locations, and to maintain brand consistency, but it’s important to carry the brand’s image.
Simply adding the franchise logo, colors, and font consistently throughout all digital signage content is a great way to keep the brand from losing its identity and maintaining content that both staff and customers can recognize.
Create Centralized Hub With Both Central Access and Local
Since franchises can be located either on a national or global level, there are many locations that need to be kept up with in terms of company news, updated marketing tactics, new products, and digital signage content. The best part about digital signage for multi-location franchises is that it becomes a centralized hub that will keep staff, shift leaders, and managers on the same page in terms of company-wide news, new products or services, onboarding and training, and local access as well.
Not only is there franchise-wide news and content to share across all locations, but content can also be created for local stores to share employee recognition posts, local events, scheduling, and other store information.
Helps Create the Same Customer Experience Regardless of Location
Many customers who actively go to a franchise expect to receive the same experience regardless of the location. When locations don’t have access to effective communication and training, this line can blur with customers receiving a good experience at one location and potentially a bad one at another–which is what franchises want to avoid at all costs.
Digital signage can help to the overall customer experience at any franchise location as it allows them to see the same type of content in a digital signage screen no matter where they go. This concept helps to unify the customer experience, and staying consistent with your brand across all locations can help to increase revenue by up to 23%.
Helps With Data Integration
One of the most helpful parts about having digital signage in multi-location franchises is that they can connect right to the POS system that can do everything from process customers payments, track inventory, and keep track of sales. This information can be crucial to the franchise and its locations by automating data flow to corporate showing higher insights into sales, labor, and inventory.
This is a positive benefit that can help franchises scale without fear of error, plus know when to order more inventory to specific locations to ensure they’re stocked up. Social media feeds can also be integrated to showcase positive reviews that customers are leaving to not only support the franchise overall, but boost particular locations and staff members–which will in return increase staff engagement and morale.
Real-Time Updates to Marketing Campaigns
The best part about digital signage is its ability to access any and all screens remotely at any time to update, modify, and add new content. This helps build brand consistency and the ability to scale by providing live updates to all franchise locations to reflect particular marketing campaigns, price changes, or updates to menus or services offered.
Digital signage also allows franchises to take out the middle man as typically posters would be ordered, shipped to each location, and replaced with the ones that are currently there. With different shipping times to each location, this can be inconsistent in reflecting current sales or promotions, which can create a disruption in the customer experience. One store offering a new product while another doesn't looks bad on the franchise as a whole and in return upsets customers.
What Every Multi-Franchise Location Needs: How Shift Can Improve Your Content Creation and Solidify Your Identity
Shift is a useful CMS platform that can help identify your brand and make managing all of your screens easier than ever!
Shift is an incredible CMS platform that can help to positively transform any multi-location franchise by boosting sales and staff morale.
Improving your scalability in a multi-location franchise can be tough without the right tools on hand. If you’re considering looking into a CMS platform that not only lets your brand shine through unique templates that can be formed for your own brand, but also offers remote management on multiple screens–then Shift is what you’ve been searching for this whole time.
How Shift Makes an Impact on Franchises
Shift is a CMS platform with all of the basics–content creation, pre-made templates to create your brand and voice, and the ability to publish it to one or multiple screens–but it also has a ton of other unique features too. While Shift cares about helping franchises to better streamline operations and providing staff with live updates to key performance indicators (KPIs), their mission is to help deepen relationships with staff.
Regardless of how many locations that any particular franchise has, it’s important to build trust and loyalty among staff and make sure that they feel valued. Creating content such as employee spotlights, work anniversary, or even birthday posts is a great way for staff to feel recognized for their work and time that they put into their job, plus it can foster a positive workplace environment and reduce high turnover rates often seen in franchises.
Features That Make Shift Your #1 Choice in Content Creation and Management
Creating positive relationships with staff is what Shift aims to do and companies can take advantage of their easy-to-use content creation platform. But they also feature a ton of other unique features to help increase staff morale, company revenue, employee engagement, and reduce costs.
The following are some other ways to create content and features that Shift offers its users:
- Boost employee engagement through recognition and appreciation
- Celebrate staff birthdays, work anniversaries, and other achievements
- Show training videos
- Employee spotlights
- Interactive polls for staff to anonymously complete
- Expands internal communications
- Allows staff to retrain and re-skill in key trainings
- Helps leaders learn more about staff
- Encourages employees to do work harder
- Increases productivity
- Create diverse content using pictures, videos, or documents
- Use as a wayfinding and navigation system
- Broadcast company announcements, updated policies, etc.
- Use to post emergency alerts
- Streamline workflow and post frequent updates about each day’s tasks
Use Shift to Scale Without the Fear of Losing Your Brand Identity–No Matter How Many Locations
It can be daunting trying to manage hundreds of digital signage screens within a franchise with multiple locations. Whether you’re looking to make it easier to build a consistent brand image or finding new ways to make marketing promotions, interact with customers, or engage with staff easier, digital signage is a great way to hit all of those points, plus help build your franchise and keep every location up-to-date at the same time.
Consider using Shift for all of your content creation and remote management capabilities to help build your franchise and keep it from losing its identity!
