Multi-Unit Franchising Conference 2011: Day 3 Recap

This our third and final recap of the Multi-Unit Franchising Conference. Click these links, to read our recaps of Day 1 and Day 2.

Day 3 consisted of only one session, but it was a knockout…

Morning Session

What’s the Secret? To Providing A World-Class Customer Experience by John R. Dijulius III. John has two best-selling books on customer service and had been speaking and consulting for many years. His experience was evident, and he put on a great presentation! John’s talk was the longest and most in-depth of the conference, so this recap will do his speech even less justice than I have been able to afford the other presentations. Much of the talk followed his 10 Commandments of World-Class Service. While all ten are important and work together in a complete service system, three stood out:

• Non-negotiable Experiential Standards – Create benchmarks your people absolutely must meet during every customer contact.

• Secret Service Systems – Utilize Customer Intelligence to personalize service and anticipate customer needs.
• Building an ‘Above and Beyond’ Culture – Inspire frontline service heroism every day.

While there were too many takeaways from John’s session to list, it is John’s mission statement that, to me, summed up his message as well was my own beliefs about customer service.

• Key Takeaway: Mission: “To be the best experience of our guest’s day!”

I highly recommend John’s books. I have read What’s the Secret (it is great!), and we bought two copies of Secret Service to read and to share with our staffs.

So, Was The Multi-Unit Franchising Conference Worth It?

When I began doing my recaps of the 2011 MUFC, my primary objective was to help franchisees who were not attending the conference decide if the MUFC might be a worthwhile investment in the future. So, on this final recap, it is only appropriate that I offer my own answer to the question: Was it worth it? My answer has to be a resounding and unequivocal YES!

To begin, my hats off to Therese Thilgen and the entire staff at Franchise Update Media Group (FMUG). They put on a top-class conference with a diverse and well-thought out range of topics and speakers. One thing I thought FMUG handled particularly well was balancing sponsor promotion with content. At no time did we ever feel that the sponsor messages were taking the place of conference material. They struck the balance perfectly!

The conference’s diversity of content reflected not only the variety of industries represented in franchising but the wide range of activities franchise business owners must address every day.  We had a lot of great takeaways from the conference and from many different disciplines.

Were all the sessions foot-stomping good times? No. But not all disciplines are tailor-made for exciting presentations. Marketing, social media, and customer service all lend themselves to funny stories and more “human” anecdotes. Economics and banking, for the most part, do not.

However, as franchisees, we know that all areas of our business are important. We are here to better our businesses, and to do that, we need quality information. And that is exactly what the MUF Conference delivered.

In evaluating any conference, you have to ask yourself what is the ROI? Tickets, flights, hotels, and time all have a cost; does the conference produce a positive return on those investments?

Without a doubt, the MUF Conference delivered value far in excess of its cost. While some returns are hard to quantify – what is the value of 3 new marketing ideas or of a recently-made contact? – some are more tangible. I can say without hesitation that one piece of information we received (and to my earlier point, from one of the less exciting sessions) will pay for the conference by a double-digit multiple.

In closing, this was our First Multi-Unit Franchising Conference, and it truly did exceed our expectations. As long as the scheduling aligns, we certainly plan to attend again in future years. Kudos to the team at Franchise Media Update Group for producing a great event! We hope to see you again in 2012!

Next: Day 1 Recap, Day 2 Recap