Unlocking Exceptional Customer Experience with Data-Driven Insights: Lessons from Franchise Leaders

In today's fast-paced, tech-enabled franchise environment, delivering exceptional customer experiences requires more than just good intentions — it demands deliberate strategy, the right tools, and actionable data. At a panel at this year’s Franchise Customer Experience Conference (FCXC), four seasoned leaders from across the franchise landscape shared how they’re transforming customer experience through data-driven decisions and smart technology adoption.

Meeting the moment with metrics

Ryan Aschauer, CIO of Floor Coverings International, highlighted how their business hinges on understanding the customer at every stage, including those who don’t make a purchase. By collecting Net Promoter Score (NPS) data from both buyers and non-buyers, they gain insights into why prospects walk away without a sale. This unconventional approach has sharpened FCI’s sales process and improved their close rates, especially after deploying in-home estimate software that enables franchisees to deliver real-time pricing with customers still present — a shift that paid immediate dividends.

Doug Flaig, CEO of Stratus Building Solutions, underscored the need for visibility in a B2B recurring revenue model. Upon joining the company, he discovered a fragmented CRM landscape and limited upstream visibility into sales. By standardizing on HubSpot and integrating proposal tools like PandaDoc, they transformed their quoting process, slashing proposal delivery times and boosting close rates. For Flaig, the key metric is speed, and the ability to deliver a digitally signed proposal from the parking lot has been a game-changer.

Technology as a customer service catalyst

For Dave McDougall of We Sell Restaurants, technology plays a pivotal role in managing two sets of customers — business buyers and sellers. By integrating tools like HubSpot, Zoho, and their proprietary CRM “The BOSS,” the company tracks every stage from listing to sale. McDougall emphasized the value of AI-powered listing videos using voice clones and avatars to humanize digital listings, significantly increasing engagement rates.

Barb Moran-Goodrich, CEO of Moran Family of Brands, approaches technology as a tailored solution across multiple automotive brands. From centralized review monitoring using SOCi to smart POS systems and AI-driven technical training videos, the franchise is turning complexity into a competitive advantage. A standout innovation: piloting AI tools to analyze franchisee phone calls for sales script adherence, with the long-term goal of real-time coaching, though challenges like “AI hallucinations” still need ironing out.

Turning pain points into progress

The panelists were candid about the challenges of implementing new technology. From legacy systems still in use after more than 20 years to costly proprietary builds that eventually became unsustainable, the lessons were clear:

• Moran-Goodrich shared how her team abandoned their custom-built TPM POS after ongoing updates became costly and incompatible with modern systems.
• Flaig described the risk of having a “single point of failure” when only one person understood proprietary code — a risk mitigated by hiring third-party developers and documenting everything.
• Aschauer offered a reminder that “every four and a half years or so, we have to upset the apple cart” — meaning technology is never permanent, and franchisors must stay nimble and future-focused.

Investing wisely in tech for franchisees

When asked how to fund growing tech needs without overburdening franchisees, panelists stressed transparency and shared value:

• Flaig advocates for collaborative investment, showing franchisees the ROI of tools like CRMs and letting performance drive adoption.
• Aschauer’s strategy is to align every tech investment with a clear business metric, making it easier to justify the spend and course-correct if it doesn’t pay off.
• Moran and McDougall balance direct billing, shared vendor discounts, and, when necessary, raising tech fees with careful communication and value framing.

Getting franchisee buy-in

Tech rollouts can fail without franchisee support. All of the panelists emphasized franchisee involvement from day one, from beta testing and advisory boards to phased rollouts with clear sunset dates for legacy systems. Building tech “with” franchisees, not “for” them, helps foster ownership, reduces resistance, and increases adoption.

The future is collaborative, data-driven, and agile

The FCXC panelists made it clear: exceptional customer experience doesn’t come from a single tool or dashboard, but rather a mindset and a commitment to constant evolution. Whether through AI coaching, faster proposals, or robust CRM systems, today’s most successful franchisors are those who stay close to their data, listen to their franchisees, and never stop refining their technology stack.

As customer expectations rise and technology accelerates, the brands that thrive will be those that harness insights not just to serve customers, but to delight them.