How do you onboard new franchisees during Covid-19? It’s a question the team at Pack & Send has been grappling with as it sees new franchisees joining each month.
The logistics chain is in a positive position, experiencing record sales growth as businesses continue to pivot to online sales channels.
Franchise territories are in high demand and being granted during the pandemic, including a current multi-unit franchisee taking on its third franchise in July.
Pack & Send CEO and founder Michael Paul said “However, with the strong demand for the purchase of new franchise territories, it was clear that with COVID travel restrictions, that our Sydney-based support office would need to adapt the delivery of our initial four week induction training program for new franchisees.
“Traditional face-to-face training had to be replaced using technology such as Zoom video calls,” he said.
The two-week classroom training was easy to migrate to live video tutoring; it’s been more challenging to rework the practical in-store training.
Because franchisees are flat out fulfilling sales there is no opportunity to lean on a locally-based franchisee to help out with training.
New franchisees Nishat Mitu and Muhammed Rahman opened their new service centre in Chermside, Queensland in early May 2020.
In the first week of opening franchisees would normally be accompanied by their field support manager for a week of onsite training. In this case the practical training elements had to be delivered virtually.
“From our first day of trading, we received virtual training from our field support manager, Ricky Vrahnos, since he was unable to travel interstate. It was challenging but he supported us in every possible way via video call, phone call and email,” Mitu said.
It’s clear the virtual training paid off – the franchisees hit a sales record in their first month of trading. Despite the pandemic, the pair achieved the company’s biggest first-month sales in its 26 year history.
Incoming franchisees have been attracted by the resilience of the business model in a tough economic climate.
Michael Paul said that its diversified income streams through multiple sales channels (visit, call, online), its investments in shipping technology platforms and its wide range of services had served franchisees extremely well during COVID.
“Our customer leads are at an all-time high, and parcel delivery sales through our ecommerce shipping technology platforms have increased by as much as 147 per cent in some months” he said.
