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Digital signage is leading a revolution in the world of quick service restaurants or QSRs. The right digital signage solution can help to improve service and elevate sales, whether it's through promoting popular meals effectively or improving overall customer experience and loyalty. 

While this usually means digital menu boards, the truth is, there is more to QSR signage than just menus.

Why use digital signage for fast food or cafes?

More than ever, customers expect an efficient service and less friction in finding what they want. In simple terms, this means being able to choose the preferred items and checkout using self service or quick service elements.

The customer journey also needs to be smooth, with as few opportunities for delays. And, in addition, the business owner is often looking to increase sales or raise awareness of other products.

Digital signage offers a number of simple benefits including being able to display a clear menu board, displaying images, promotional messages or other relevant content.

What type of digital signage is used in quick service restaurants?

Restaurants, coffee shops and fast food businesses are increasingly relying on digital content to improve the dining experience. This means installing displays —screens, tablets, and kiosks—to communicate dynamic and eye catching content to customers or improve the in-restaurant customer experience.

Typically, quick service restaurants and coffee shops will display their menu board above the bar or order station. But they are also seeing the value in menu screens for restaurants streaming eye-catching food images or highlighting specific menu items or special offers.

In a fast food or quick service environment, efficiency and ease of customer engagement are both important, and that’s why digital signage is key. Screens can serve as a crucial driver of sales and efficiency through:

Dynamic menu boards: Showing the menu, prices and additional info such as special offers or QR codes to order at table

Digital posters: Playing promotions and special offers either in the store itself or in the window

Self checkout kiosks: Quickly and easily order without queueing at the cash desk

Point-of-sale (POS) displays: Strategically placed screens highlighting special offers designed to upsell at the checkout

Video walls: Eye-catching visual displays showing everything from the brand story to lifestyle content

Table screens: Tablet sized screens which can show the menu and include ordering functionality

Read More: How to Do Point of Sale Marketing Right 

Benefits of digital signage in fast food or cafe settings

1. Dynamic content with minimal design knowledge

Using digital signage software such as ScreenCloud, even teams without design expertise can easily create compelling, professional-grade content. We built our intuitive platform to simplify content management while maintaining the visual quality you expect for your brand.

You can create slides using dozens of templates, or use our Quick Post app to create screen-ready content in a few clicks. And with a suite of apps tailored for quick service restaurants, you can publish beautiful sales-driving content to all of your screens.

At the point of purchase, smaller digital screens such as tablets can be used to upsell based on products or customer behavior. Messages urging customers to upgrade their meal for just $2, or to take advantage of a great deal for just a little extra can have a huge impact on these kinds of sales opportunities.

Digital signage lets QSRs quickly update menus to reflect current availability. Easily transition from breakfast to lunch service with pre-scheduled menus. Stay agile during high-traffic hours and ensure your customers always see up-to-date, accurate information.

On busy days, digital menu boards can be adapted to show expected wait times, or remind patrons of additional seating areas.

Our Digital Menu Board app comes with ready to use templates, or easily create your own.

Read more: How to Make a Digital Menu Board

Digital signage can address one of the biggest customer pain points in quick service restaurants: waiting for their order. Screens can streamline the ordering process by displaying clear digital menus as soon as customers enter, positioned in key areas to improve visibility.

Restaurants can also display their order queue to customers so they can see how long orders are taking - and where their order is in the queue. Using ScreenCloud digital signage means you can easily integrate your order management software and display it on your screens.

Another way screens improve the customer experience is by displaying a variety of engaging content, from social media feeds and weather updates to live news and sports scores.

We’ve also seen that strategically placed screens can reduce perceived wait times by up to 35%.

Digital signage screens make it easy to maintain consistent brand messaging across multiple restaurants and locations because you can manage all of your content from a central control panel. 

For example, if you manage a chain, you can quickly and easily share company wide promotions. But you can also share location specific special offers, or schedule content for local events or occasions.

And because your restaurant content is managed using cloud based software, you don't need to upload files from USB sticks or do fiddly manual updates. One less thing to do in your day!

There are many ways to use digital signage to improve customer engagement with your brand. A simple and easy method is to add your social media feed to your digital posters, or add a call to action to follow your company on socials on your menu boards.

You can also display your Google or Yelp feedback on window display screens, or share your loyalty program on your point of sale displays.

Some more ideas can include a call to action to sign up for your newsletter, or asking people to share their pictures or feedback on social media in return for a discount or freebie.

Instead of tired piece of paper on the wall displaying the calories and allergy information of a dish, digital signage allows you to easily add these features in a clear and engaging way. With customer access to touchscreen devices, the customer can click and view additional nutritional information so they can make more informed decisions about their choices.

This can also be displayed on a digital menu, or accessed via QR codes.

All of this information makes the ordering experience less stressful for those who might have special dietary requirements or who want peace of mind.

Launch ScreenCloud’s digital signage for your quick service restaurant

Whether it's showcasing your menu options on your digital menu boards, sharing images of your new mouth watering dishes, or sharing details of your monthly promotional offers, digital signage is becoming a must have for food-based businesses.

While many solutions offer basic functionality, ScreenCloud's digital signage software stands out for its premium features. You get seamless integration with your current software solutions, meaning you can easily integrate dashboards to display pending orders or display promotions.

And with a centralized and cloud based control panel, it's easy to manage content across different branches of your QSR chain. This enables brand consistency, easy content scheduling and an easy-to-use content creation suite perfectly suited for QSRs' needs. 

Sign up for a free 14-day trial today. No credit card required.

Digital signage in quick serve restaurants and fast food is changing how customers interact. Find out how businesses are using signage to boost sales.

A lot has been said, rumored and written of the economic meltdown caused by the pandemic. It’s no secret that quick-service restaurants took among the biggest hits. McKinsey certainly noticed, citing stronger demand for digital delivery and a shift in spending from QSRs to grocery stores as two major disruptive factors. Moving beyond what seems to be the worst of it, the bounceback is now on for QSRs willing to innovate. QSR digital signage promises to be part of the springboard to revitalized profits and footfall.


A Coherent QSR Digital Signage Content Strategy Will Be a Must


It’s just not enough to swing open your doors and expect the locals to walk in and order ‘the usual’. Post-Covid, QSRs have a battle on their hands. Customer loyalty should be re-incentivised and reinforced. Skewed spending trends should be re-stabilised and re-established.

Smalltown QSR franchises that rely on a local customer base may get by and survive without much innovation, but they won’t thrive.

Those in more competitive spots—where busy infrastructure gives customers greater options—have to go one further with a coherent QSR digital signage content strategy.


Hyper-Local Messaging Needs to Go Paperless


Hyper-local messaging will continue to be a key factor post-Covid to connect with local QSR food preferences. But QSRs should no longer rely on paper menus to create it.

Instead of cumulative print, paper and admin costs, QSRs should turn to digital signage to create marginal cost gains over time, automate hyper-local food media menu messaging and give teams back time to focus on service.



Cross-Touchpoint QSR Communication Should Be Carefully Designed and Deployed


The core perk of QSR digital signage is the ability to diversify and strengthen communication with the customer.

Going beyond hyper-local messages, quick-service restaurant content teams need to consider the purpose of each touchpoint, with optimal placement of each food menu media screen—this is the kind of thinking that brings the ‘coherence’ to ‘QSR digital signage content strategy’.

QSR content strategists should consider:

Who the audience is for each QSR area or zone

 How much content people can digest during interaction time 


Remember, QSRs aren’t the only businesses using digital channels to reach and influence customers. Brand-customer relationships are hyper-digital today and there is such a thing as ‘too much’ digitization.

That means your QSR digital signage shouldn’t saturate customer spaces and attention. Instead, it should assist their journey meaningfully ‘from sight-to-bite’.

In other words, your food menu media should direct and inform customer attention, without becoming performative, arbitrary or overindulgent.


How to Start Building or Keep Growing Your QSR Digital Signage Content Strategy Cost-Effectively

For QSRs yet to roll out a coherent QSR digital signage content strategy, the most cost-effective way is to build slowly. Connect any existing screens you already have with one of our media devices. Then slowly scale your ScreenCloud subscription.

Don’t have the screens yet? We’ve got budget-friendly options that include different types of hardware solutions tailored to your needs. Contact us to learn more.

QSR digital signage isn’t new. What’s new is increased awareness among QSR franchisors of emerging new use cases and digital QSR content strategies.

2022 may be the year that finally sees the breaks come off on post-Covid QSR recovery. Franchisors and content teams able to leverage smart QSR content strategies will be best positioned to cash-in. It’s not just about having digital signage and food menu media. It’s about tactical deployment.

What QSRs Should Know About Digital Signage In 2022 (and Beyond)

Quick service restaurant owners that achieve ‘legendary’ status learn one important lesson; customers remember service. In just minutes, a queueing customer’s mood can swing from excited anticipation to apathy and even anger. 

QSRs that understand this are those that succeed. They devise strategies to improve the queueing experience and maintain the customer mood at the ‘excited’ phase—and they use digital menu boards to do it.

Experience-conscious franchises using QSR digital signage to improve the queueing experience recognize the need to show customers that their time is valued – and to reduce the perception of that time spent queuing.

In a 2016 survey by Forrester, 72% of respondents claimed that simply having their time valued is the number-one thing a company can do as part of good service.

Showing customers that you value their time is of particular importance for fast food and quick service restaurants compared with other restaurant types.

QSRs don’t have front-of-house teams to entertain customers

Fine-dining customers, for example, will cut you a little more slack—after all, they’re there to relax. Furthermore, front-of-house teams in formal restaurants can actively engage queuing and waiting customers to keep apathy at bay.

The QSR customers’ impatience threshold is unforgivingly low.

QSR customers, on the other hand, are in a different gear. They’re there to spend a few bucks on something mouthwatering served fast. Once they’re in line, their patience drains with each passing minute. And there’s no front-of-house team to meet, great and engage them.


That’s where digital food menu signs come into their own.

When that order ticket comes in, one of the best ways to help customers visualise their wait time is with a visual queue display. Queue management systems (QMS) are great for this, and you can easily integrate these displays into your digital signage too.

You've probably seen it before where your order number is displayed on a screen, perhaps with a status update such as 'being prepared'. You can then gauge how long it's going to take to get your order based on the number of orders in the queue and their turnaround time.

With queue management on digital signage, you can even integrate these order updates into a section in the corner of your menu, or next to promotional content.

How digital food menu signs highlight customer value

Let’s take a selection of different customer types: curbside customers passing by, new first-time customers and regulars. How can digital signage elevate and improve queuing experience for each of them, while increasing the average order value?

Improving the queueing experience for curbside customers

Digital food menu signs can be tactically placed in QSR windows to display content like scrolling order highlights, seasonal specials and promotions.

By helping curbside customers save time with early order selection before they’ve stepped inside, their ‘sight-to-bite’ time reduces; giving their patience that little extra mileage when queuing. Those are the in-and-out experiences new customers return to – convenience = time saving = fast food. 

Improving the queueing experience for new customers

First-time customers often join the first queue they see. How will they feel if they realize they’ve been in the ‘order-pickup’ line for 10 minutes without having first placed an order?

Well-placed, dynamic digital signage indicating the right queues to pre-order and post-order customers can spare them the frustration of erroneous queueing and avert empty-handed walkout situations. The same screens can also be configured to display expected queue times to manage expectations and give a sense of queue progress.

Improving queueing experience for regulars

QSR regulars often walk in knowing what they want. Because they’re regulars, they may be that little more impatient than the new customers who decide as they queue.

Digital food menu signs improve regular customers’ queuing experience and increase average order value by displaying new order options, promotions, loyalty perks and other incentives that add value to the time invested in waiting.

Improve the QSR queueing experience and increase sales by as much as 38%

ScreenCloud’s digital menu boards for franchises give QSRs a diverse, powerful and affordable range of options for rolling out tactical queue-engagement strategies.

Instead of relying on queuing customers to pass the time on their phones, ScreenCloud’s dynamic digital signage can be tactically geared for multiple queue-engagement applications.

Improve the queueing experience with ScreenCloud digital signage

Manage your ScreenCloud media-screen estate centrally or customize local brand identity with instant access for franchise partners.

Schedule your ScreenCloud demo and learn how ScreenCloud digital signage can help upsell order top-ups, manage queueing-time expectations, drive loyalty promotions, display seasonal specials and create digital dining experiences worth repeating that look as good as the food tastes.

Digital food menu signs help QSRs show customers that their time is valuable. Build brand loyalty by bettering the customer experience with digital menu boards.

For queueing QSR customers, mouthwatering anticipation can turn to bitter frustration in minutes. Use digital signage to turn the risk of customer apathy into opportunity.

How QSRs Improve the Queueing Experience with Digital Menu Boards

‘Digital dining experiences’ may sound like something straight out of a sci-fi novel. But in fact, they’re very much within reach for QSRs –especially those that want to futureproof their brand relevance with memorable experiences that customers return to. Food menu media is a powerful vehicle for carrying those experiences to the customer.  

What are food menu media and ‘digital dining experiences’?

You may know food menu media as digital menus or digital signage for QSRs. ‘Food menu media’ refers to exactly those things, plus all the peripheral hardware and features that help create digital dining experiences.

Digital menu boards:that display real-time, always-updated menu offerings and special offers that look good enough to eat.

Customizable app integrations:for lifting heads to draw in footfall with customizable food-media content displayed on digital signage screens.

Professional media players: that reliably power your digital signage estate of screens and menu boards bringing the ‘wow’ to digital dining experiences.

Ok. That’s food menu media demystified. What exactly are the ‘digital dining experiences’ they help deliver? And why deliver them with digital signage for QSRs?

Developing the QSR digital dining experience

QSR product offering starts curbside or in the car, before customers have taken a bite or set foot inside. The experience is part of the product. By the time customers place an order, all the sights and smells in the lead-up are part of the QSR proposition.

Digital dining experiences assisted by food menu media are about enriching that experience by signposting the journey from ‘sight’ to ‘bite’—all while building order value by informing or facilitating purchase decisions.

The bottom line is that experience beats both product and price as the key brand differentiator. QSRs that understand this build return custom through memorable and meaningful food menu media experiences that customers associate with.

What do QSRs look, feel and taste like with and without ‘digital dining experiences’?

Fundamentally, digital dining experiences from the customer perspective are about two things; effortless problem solving and seamless user experience. Food menu media enable both while giving QSR interiors a zap of modernity.

When customers choose to dine at one of your franchises, they’ve already solved their fist challenge—”where shall I eat?”. 

Once they’re inside, your first challenge is to ensure that decision sticks. That means ensuring they can solve their next problem without too much fuss—“what shall I order?” It’s worth noting that “how much shall I order?” is an implicit decision within that.  

“We queued 15 minutes to be told our order is out of stock”

The last thing you need is to frustrate the order process with confused, faded or outdated paper menus showing ‘in-stock’ items that aren’t. Or worse still, ‘out-of-stock’ items that are actually in stock. Those are the kinds of low-tech frustrations customers remember and regret.

Digital food boards not only display consistently up-to-date menu options, but menu listings can also be centrally configured from one place for all franchises.

Better still, digital signage can be used to help manage customer expectations on queueing time to give a sense of progress and keep people on the scent of a great bite.

It’s known in user experience research that the more choices there are, the longer we take to choose, and the more likely we are to completely abort the experience.

If your menu range is vast, then all the more reason to narrow the choice by signposting customers to orders. And food menu media displaying popular or special-offer items is just the ticket.

Once customers have ordered, supporting digital screens can be leveraged for in-queue entertainment, social media promos and order top-up options that maintain a healthy appetite.

Effortless problem solving? CHECK. 
Seamless user experience? CHECK. 
Elevated QSR digital dining experience? CHECK.

Want to create knockout digital dining experiences worth repeating?

QSRs might assume digital dining experiences are a menu item of global, big-budget chains—it’s simply not so. ScreenCloud has a range of options for affordably scaling digital dining experiences with food menu media.

Instead of expensive enterprise setups with complex installations, ScreenCloud can connect existing screens or screens you plan to purchase. The result is a cost-efficient estate of digital signage and dining experiences you can grow. Start with the free trial and build from there. 


Digital dining experiences from the customer perspective are about two things; effortless problem solving and seamless user experience. Food menu media enable both while giving QSR interiors a zap of modernity.

‘Digital dining experiences’ may sound like something straight out of a sci-fi novel. But in fact, they’re very much within reach for QSRs.

How Food Menu Media Help QSRs Offer Elevated Digital Dining Experiences

Try ScreenCloud digital signage free for 14-days. No credit cards required. Or get a product demonstration.

Ready to get started with digital signage?

How to drive sales and productivity with digital menu boards.

eBook: Digital Signage for QSR Restaurants - ScreenCloud

Driving sales via positively influencing purchasing decisions

Enhancing the customer experience and brand

Reducing pressure on staff with scalable solutions for menu updates

Discover how and why digital signage is an appropriate and effective strategy for:

It’s 1921. The world’s first burger chain—White Castle—opens its doors for the first time. The smell of their iconic onion-steamed sliders spill out into the street. Back then the faint waft of a killer burger was enough to convert customer attention. Not anymore.  Permanent distraction is the standard operating system for many. QSRs need to cut through the noise and compete for attention. Adopting digital menu boards as the ‘secret sauce’ in a QSR digital signage strategy is key in a world of intensifying digital chatter.

Before sticking a fork into ‘how’ digital menu boards boost QSR profit, it’s important to first understand ‘why’ food menu media is even necessary.

Why digital menu boards need to win the battle for customer attention

QSR franchisees will be forgiven for thinking: 


“We sell fast, tasty, honest food. Not digital clickbait content. What does the attention economy have to do with us and why would we need digital menu boards?”

It’s true—attention economics is a talking point of digital, online economies. That said, there are parallels for profit-conscious QSRs that rely on converting customer attention. Especially given the overlap between digital and physical commerce, plus the resulting spillover in expectations of customers used to digital dining experiences.

The takeaway is this—old and outdated print menus do little to elevate the customer experience. Big chains already learned the lessons of attention economy, creating digital dining experiences by removing the old printed menus and replacing them with smart screens. Ambitious QSRs looking to keep pace and thrive must follow suit.

What is the ‘attention economy’ and why should QSRs care?


In the simplest terms:

“Attention economics is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce commodity.”

In today’s intensely competitive QSR economy, you can bet your bottom dollar customer attention is scarce. QSRs must compete not only with big chains and other local competitors, but with their own customers’ limited attention spans – plus, a myriad of digital attention economy players trying to capture them.

What’s the opportunity with digital menu boards for QSRs?


The value of food menu media for QSRs is to emulate—both curbside and inside—the digital experiences customers are used to for sourcing information. Tired, inert print menus that fade to background just don’t compete on that level.

What causes empty-handed customer u-turns?

Maybe their order is ‘out of stock’ on the paper or JPEG menus you forgot to update

Maybe they spot a larger chain opposite and are seduced by the promotions clearly shown on large, digital screens

The point is that all of these distractions make costly land grabs into customers' attention that can leave QSRs out of pocket. Digital menu boards can prevent this, and in turn, significantly boost QSR profit.

How digital menu boards win the battle for customer attention

Just getting footfall to hotfoot inside and load up on orders is a challenge QSRs strategize for—and adopting digital signage as part of that strategy is a powerful way of fighting digital fire with digital fire.

QSR profit boosting is all about the attention grab

Food menu media and the digital signage software for creating it are more than about simply keeping menus automatically refreshed and updated. 

Digital menu boards pack a lot of other perks.

Get curbside footfall outside, inside

Forget the chalk sandwich board. It’s all about curbside digital signage that comes to life with rich media, scrolling promotions and eye-catching design. Restaurant TV boards is how savvy QSRs cut through ambient distraction to draw people inside.

Keep queueing customers inside and engaged

Once you have queueing customers, the tactics need to change. Now it’s about sustaining and entertaining attention with dynamic food menu media that keeps customer boredom and apathy at the door.

Create meaningful and consistent digital dining experiences

What’s the top-down value of digital signage and digital menu boards for QSRs? It’s the utility of being able to match customer expectations and user mental models that have been shaped by digital experiences.

Ultimately, digital signage and food menu media help QSRs communicate brand relevance to customers through consistent, relevant digital brand experiences.

Game-changing digital signage for attention-hungry QSRs doesn’t have to cost the world

The good news for QSRs is that there’s no reason why ‘mom and pop’ eateries can’t compete with the big players. Launching sophisticated digital food media strategies doesn’t have to be prohibitively complex or expensive.

Easy, affordable digital signage scalability

ScreenCloud gives QSR franchises an alternative to the costly enterprise route for rolling out digital signage incentives that generate meatier bottom lines.

Better still, ScreenCloud’s intuitive, easy-to-use software is ideal for easily scaling digital signage strategy at a pace of your choosing across multi-location QSRs. Whether centrally or locally controlled franchisors and their franchisees can quickly create and adapt strategic digital signage strategies that command and convert the attentions of even the most distractible customers. 

Permanent distraction is the standard operating system for many. QSRs need to cut through the noise and compete for attention. Adopting digital menu boards as the ‘secret sauce’ in a QSR digital signage strategy is key in a world of intensifying digital chatter.

How to Boost QSR Profit With Digital Menu Boards 

Download our free guide to see how leading restaurants, bars and hotels create digital signage to upsell, entice customers and bring better communications to life.

Free Ebook: Digital Signage For Restaurants, Bars & Hotels - ScreenCloud

How to determine if digital signage is right for your restaurant or bar.

Examples of cool digital signage in action and ways you can use it.

How to use simple technology to create eyecatching screens.

How to use apps and live feeds to gain more views, engagement and sales. 

Create enticing digital menu boards to upsell, promote and educate.

Learn how to setup, edit and control screens from anywhere. 

How leading bars, restaurants and hotels use digital signage to drive customer engagement

Actionable tips for any hospitality organization

The in-depth guide to digital menu board creation

The free digital signage guide for increasing sales.

Keeping employees engaged is difficult at the best of times. But throw in the challenges of retaining engagement across multiple locations – and a global pandemic – and you’ve got a logistical nightmare on your hands.

When Steven Nisbet Jr first approached ScreenCloud his aim was a simple one: to drive employee engagement across his seven franchises. As many franchise owners will know, communication is key. Yet it’s impossible to be in more than one location at once, and scalable solutions also come with scalable costs.

(Read more about best practices for franchise marketing here).

Steven’s personal visits to each of his restaurant locations had been complemented by his internal communications strategy – made possible with ScreenCloud’s ability to push content to multiple screens across different locations, managed from one central CMS. These break room screens show everything from birthday and work anniversary announcements, to product training and safety notices, thus allowing Steven a presence while setting the tone for his employees in each one of his restaurants in between visits. 

The obvious doesn’t need to be stated. But running a business of any kind without the ability to visit in person had the potential to cause serious issues. But for Steven:

"ScreenCloud has helped me stay connected with all my restaurants during the pandemic. I've been able to communicate effectively across locations without needing to make all the regular visits I used to make. Keeping everyone safe has been crucial, but I'm glad I've also been able to keep the teams engaged and the business going during this challenging time. We'll continue to take advantage of the valuable efficiencies gained from ScreenCloud."

- A happy workforce could not have been more crucial over the past year - 

We’ve written before about the future of the workplace and the growing importance of communication for improved employee engagement – facilitated by an effective digital signage strategy. And at a time when so many felt isolated and disconnected in their private lives, let alone their professional, employee engagement could not have been more important.

Because engagement = productivity. Important, yes, but overshadowed when you take into account that engagement can also = happiness. And a happy workforce, in a customer-facing setting, could not have been more crucial over the past year.

While we could wax lyrical about the importance of digital signage and the internal comms strategy Steven uses to grow the success of his business, there is a greater story to be told: Thank You Meals.

Aside from the internal safety initiatives that he put in place for his staff, Steven also wanted to celebrate those who keep us safe on the other side of the plexiglass partitions: the emergency services. For a period of time, Steven offered free Thank You Meals to first responders and healthcare professionals, spreading a bit of cheer by handing them over in Happy Meal boxes. Except in place of the usual toy would be a note of appreciation.

The importance of community spirit cannot be underestimated. And showing appreciation for those who have made a difference, even if it’s one Thank You Meal at a time, should always be acknowledged. These are now the kinds of messages that are popping up on those break room screens.

If you’re a QSR business or franchise owner and interested in discussing an internal communications strategy – or even a digital menu one – give ScreenCloud a try for free, or request a demo.

Photo credits: Mark Tryapichnikov / Christian Wiediger

Employee engagement and COVID. Not a great mix. But with an effective digital signage strategy you can stay connected – like Steven Nisbet Jr. did with his franchises. Read more about it on our blog.

When COVID hit, Steven Nisbet Jr. was already prepared; he just didn’t know it yet. See how he kept his staff safe and connected during the pandemic.

Burgers, COVID and Digital Signage: How Nisbet Enterprises stayed connected

Many problems that franchise businesses face can be boiled down to failures of communication. For example, a franchisor neglecting to share safety information or franchisees pushing promotions that aren't aligned with the brand. The secret sauce for successful franchisor-franchisee relationships is effective communication.

The good news is that effective communication isn’t a hard skill to learn. In this post, we’ll dive into seven different ways you can better communicate with your franchisees.

1. Ensure consistency with your franchisees

Think about all the goals you’ve set in both your personal and professional life, from losing weight and learning French to building your own company, how often do you achieve them without the discipline of consistency? The same principle applies when it comes to communication.  

Consistent communication is essential in strengthening your reputation and accountability as well as building trust with your franchisees. It also enables you to align and measure your efforts. Checking in with your franchisees regularly will help you get intel on the good stuff, like knowing how effective their marketing is or what they’re hearing from customers.

There are many ways to establish a consistent dialogue with your franchisees. For example, you could send out a franchisee newsletter with exciting news and important updates every Wednesday. Or send out a survey every Friday to gather feedback and insights from franchisees. 

There are multiple ways to make internal communication smooth and easy.       

It’s easy to forget the importance of face-to-face communication in the digital age. Tools like email, social media, and instant messaging offer convenience, but they can’t replace the personal bonds that can only be built via face-to-face interactions. And text-based communications often miss important subtleties, leading to even the most well-intentioned emails being misinterpreted. 

Try to have in-person meetings with your franchisees, especially if you have to discuss important topics or goals. Email can be very slow—readers can’t ask questions as they go along so emails snowball into lengthy discussions as people ask for further clarification. Hence, in-person meetings can be the most efficient way to transfer a large amount of information.

If your franchisees are spread out over a large geographical area, use video tools like Zoom, Join.me, GoToMeeting, and Google Meet for regular face-to-face communication. Note that online video conferencing is not a complete substitute for human contact. Explore other opportunities where you can have constructive face-to-face conversations with franchisees, such as IFA’s annual conventions or regional meetings.

3. Create feedback loops with your franchisees

Communication is a two-way street and shouldn't be franchisor-led only. Feedback loops are essential in helping you understand what you need to improve, what delights your customers, what lets them down, why certain locations struggle more than others, etc. It’s not only demoralizing for franchisees if they feel they are not listened to, but you’ll also be missing out on crucial information and opportunities that can transform your business.

Establishing a Franchise Advisory Council (FAC) is a common way to enable a healthy feedback system and communication within a franchise organization. This is a group of franchisee representatives who advocate on behalf of franchisees. Councils are a powerful medium for franchisees to share their mutual problems and concerns, network with their peers, and influence the business’ direction. For the franchisor, councils are a place not only for soliciting feedback and suggestions but also for introducing and discussing new ideas, such as marketing strategies, technologies, and suppliers, before implementing them across the organization.

It’s unreasonable to expect everyone to remember every detail of a meeting. Having an agenda is important and you should also write down the key action points and decisions discussed in every meeting. Share agendas and minutes with attendees (and anyone who couldn't make it) and follow up on action items to ensure that meetings have purposes and don’t need to be repeated.

First-time franchisees with little experience running a business can feel overwhelmed in the early days. However, franchisors like yourself have walked this path and accumulated a wealth of knowledge from years of hard work and perseverance. Share your lessons and best practices with franchisees, via written materials and other forms of communication like meetings, Q&A sessions, and informal discussions. When franchisees feel supported and invested in, they’ll have confidence, perform better, and strengthen their trust in you. 

Success for franchisees is a win-win situation. The more they sell, the healthier your business. Marketing is key to letting customers know about your franchise's existence and ensuring a healthy bottom line.

Encourage franchisees to focus on marketing-first initiatives. Not everyone comes from a marketing background, so it’s important to give franchisees a solid foundation to help them get started. For instance, you can provide a marketing plan that covers the first three months of running a franchise location. It should lay out specific promotional materials, timing, and costs for each marketing activity, both online and offline.  

With many franchise locations, it’s important not to overlook local marketing. Customer demographics vary depending on geography. People living in urban areas like Boston and NYC have different needs and behaviors to those living in small towns in Ohio and Virginia. Help franchisees tailor their marketing approaches to meet local preferences. The 2019 BIA survey showed that national campaigns often underperform localized marketing initiatives in reaching and converting customers. As a result, national brands are now spending big bucks on advertising that targets local consumers—a predicted spend of $67.5 billion in 2023.

We’ve shared some best practices you can use to manage your franchise marketing in a previous blog post.

In the chaotic world of running a franchise business, it's critical that your franchisees have the information they need to do their jobs effectively. Emails get buried in inboxes and meetings get side-tracked. Here are some great internal communication tools to help make communication with  franchisees as smooth and efficient as possible. 

Calendly: This appointment scheduling software helps you find the perfect meeting time with ease. No more back-and-forth emails with your franchisees!

DocuSign: Use this application to collect digital signatures and complete important franchise agreements in minutes or hours from wherever you are. 

Dropbox: A great tool for storing and sharing franchise content such as marketing materials and operation manual, enabling easy collaborations with franchisees.  

Google Docs: Use this to create, access, and edit shared documents and collaborate with others in real-time.  

Facebook Group: A nice, informal outlet for franchisees to connect and share their ideas and experiences, discuss common issues, and organize activities.  

Slack: A user-friendly online chat designed to replace internal email chains and help different teams and franchise locations stay connected.

Digital signage is a smart and effective medium for surfacing important information and improving internal communication with your franchisees. If you’re eager to give it a shot, sign up for our 14-day free trial today or learn more at https://screen.cloud/franchises. 

Cover photo by Jessica Sysengrath via Unsplash. 

7 best practices to help you better communicate with your franchisees, including creating feedback loops and using tools for support and automation.

Effective communication is essential to the success of any franchise business. Use these tips to help keep your franchisees updated, engaged, and empowered.

How to Improve Communication with Your Franchisees

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