Streamlining Customer Experience for Small Businesses

Lance Hood (FranPro) 0:00

Hi everyone Today we have Matthew Gorgio , the head of business and business development with .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 0:07

Thrive Matthew welcome .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 0:10

Thanks , lance , it's good to be here . You know I want to share some of your insights and some action items with everybody's call . Things they can put into practice right away . Can you just take a minute to explain , thrive ? I know you have a round at this point .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 0:26

Yeah , lance . We have 55,000 customers . Our customers are small businesses , small business owners , all over the US , canada and Australia . We also have three dozen franchise brands that leverage our software at the franchisee level . So these franchisors whether they have five locations or 105 , they're instituting Thrive at every franchise location and Thrive simply helps small businesses manage the customer experience . So , customer experience being before , during and after the sale if you think of that customer journey , a consumer , their customer experience when they're interacting with your brand or your small business , is just simply how they feel throughout that entire journey .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 1:08

And the problem that small business owners and franchises face in 2023 is that consumer expectations are through the roof . We're interacting with these huge companies and they're providing us this easy experience . When we interact with a small business owner , we want a similar kind of frictionless experience and it's grown really tough to deliver a great experience . So small businesses are using many tools to manage that process , sometimes as high as seven to 10 different tools to manage that customer journey . Thrive is an all-in-one platform that small businesses and franchisees can use to manage the customer experience and we can get into a little bit of the different tools that are on the platform , but it helps to manage essentially the customer experience across the board . Yeah , so all your communication , scheduling and communication and marketing and reputation in one place , all in one place , without the use of all these other programs , which is very cool because then all the data it also means that everything can be shared together in one place .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 2:10

I love that what I wanted to talk about too , is you guys ? Have a template , so it has all the defaults in place and everybody can set it up . Company works with them to create a template , so once they establish this , template . They can just start a new location , literally just template easy peasy bring on a new franchisee , you go and set it up from scratch every time , and I know that you guys normally charge $1,000 a year for that template and in a year signs up out .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 2:33

You're going to waive it right to get started through .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 2:37

Exactly , yep . When you work with us and , let's say , you want to start using Thrive at all your franchise locations , you can customize our product to a certain extent the settings , the marketing , the branding and all that on our franchise template . Every franchise or gets a franchise template , and so that way , when you transition your current franchisees now or your future franchisees , our product team literally presses a button , puts in the new franchisee's information and that moment we have a new count spun up , and that way your new franchisee or you at the corporate level don't have to go in from scratch and create this new account . And it's a great product , it's a great tool within our product and we normally charge franchiseeors $1,000 a year in order to use it .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 3:24

But if you take advantage of the link below , we will extend that to you for free .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 3:30

Well . I know that great things about the software is it allows you to track and analyze your company to see what's going on with top specs , your top franchisees , all this stuff , and you can track the top performance and bottom performance to see what's working in the industry and to establish best practices .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 3:49

Can you share some of these ?

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 3:50

best practice with everybody who's listening today . Think of , use and apply today .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 3:56

Well , I think you know it depends on what point of the customer experience or customer journey you want to talk about . I think on a kind of across the board level . Consumers today expect things to be easy . They want things to be frictionless . They don't really want to spend a lot of time at any one point in your customer journey . So , whether that's them looking for you online , interacting with your website , making a phone call , filling out a form , you coming out to their house , maybe , or visiting your brick and mortar store , asking questions , paying you , you need to be very simple to be paid . It needs to be very simple to pay you and then afterwards , if I have questions or whatnot . Again , it's the simplicity of trying to make that as seamless as possible across every point of the customer experience , and you ultimately can do that through technology . But the customer has really high expectations and they're only getting higher the further and further we go Right .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 5:01

But anything that you kind of picked up on things that companies may be increasing or might help them .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 5:06

Well , I'll give you an example . So let's look at scheduling 50% of all online appointments . If you take appointments online , 50% of those are booked after 5 pm . So if you think about the customer in that regard , they're interacting with your local business . If you only accept appointments over the phone and somebody has to call you between working hours in order to make that appointment , you're really missing out . And so if you can allow , if you can really empower the customer to book with you via your website or scheduling , you know widget on social media or whatnot . You know that opens the door for you as a business owner . And that's just one of . You know endless amounts of data points that we can provide that show you how to really win with the customer .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 6:00

Think productivity is a big deal and a lot of companies are missing out because things aren't getting done . I know you talk about taking all these points . Can you share some of the different software and product together for this ? Any general things that people can do ?

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 6:14

to increase product sucks that are just .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 6:17

Yeah , I would , you know one run and audit of your own . You know , think about your customer experience and think about any manual process along the way , anything that you're doing manually . Salesforce ran a study a couple of years ago and found that small businesses are losing one full day a week so 50-ish 52 days a year in productivity to manual task , you know . And so I would look at the different points in your customer experience and like what are you and your employees doing manually and what could be automated ? So I mean , I think , as small business owners , if you're not , you know , really trying to improve the efficiency of your small business , then you're really you're going to struggle moving forward . You know you use the word friction a lot .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 7:06

And that's a work that's been on my mind for quite some time .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 7:10

You know , one of the things that I always the way to move friction is we can draw out the amount of time we have from beginning to end , when we even make queue and stop training ourselves and get tired . And then I think through the process .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 7:22

Where are your points of ?

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 7:23

friction when points of ?

Lance Hood (FranPro) 7:24

friction are a little harder than it needs to be . Can you share some examples of what that would look like and look at ways that I can kind of remove that friction and how things move ?

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 7:34

simpler , easier , more automatically .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 7:36

I think for small businesses and franchises , I think a big pain point would be payments . You know , when we interact with big customers like big , you know I think of Amazon's , of the world it's very easy , so simple , to pay them , right ? You think PayPal and Fours , or you know just all these companies are the biggest companies in the world , are working very hard to make it simple for their customers to pay them . And so when we get that experience on a day in and day out basis , then we turn to interact with a small business . First it was cash and check . If you only accepted cash and check , right , you were missing out on all the people that would throw a big purchase on their credit card .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 8:17

Now , if you accept credit cards and maybe there's other ways now to provide convenience so , for instance , an example would be like an HVAC or maybe a home service type brand coming out to your house Well , you may offer a service that's maybe a little bit expensive let's say it's a few grand or whatnot that customer , either one needs to have a credit card balance that can pay you , or , two , they need to have the cash in the bank to do it , but inside a Thrive's platform . We partner with Weistac . We offer consumer financing . So a heating and air or any kind of home service , small business can come out to your home and say the job and you get to approve for consumer financing on the spot .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 9:05

And that's the Thrive platform helping that small business owner turn a no or a maybe from a payment standpoint into a yes , and it makes it easier for that consumer to pay for that job that they want done within their home and it makes it easier on the small business owner that's using it because they've received the funds immediately . So that's just one example of where payments can really cause a friction point , where if you only accept a certain kind of payment or if you're limited in your payment options , I mean I literally might tell you no . Thanks for coming out , thanks for the estimate , thanks for the proposal , but I'm going to hold tight for a minute . That's a concrete example .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 9:53

I had situations where I wanted to buy a service or hire somebody . It started becoming more labor intensive , a little harder than I thought . I realized I'm getting into something that's a little more work than I thought I was going to and I just stopped . Now I'm going to be waiting . So I would have just been hey , it's really all about keeping it simple , easy , effortless . I probably would have said , yeah , intuitive , so that people just use it .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 10:16

I've seen the same thing you're talking about with purchase .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 10:18

Yeah , I think the best companies , lance , are you're trying to empower the consumer . The more you're empowering the consumer to control the customer experience , the better you know when , as a consumer , when you have to sit back and you're kind of at the whim of the small business owner , that model is really not winning out . It's the small business owner that allows the consumer sorry to , for instance , think about going on to someone's website and wanting them to come out to your house to book an estimate , and you know your availability . You can click on a scheduler and see their availability and book for that person to come out .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 10:59

If you think about the experience with home service brands over the last I don't know 100 years , you might give them a phone call . It rings six or seven times . They may or may not answer . You finally get someone on the phone and you're like , hey , could you come out at such and such time and that might take only 10 to 15 to 20 minutes to have that conversation with them . But that's 10 or 15 minutes that the owner of the business or their employee and the consumer have back in their day by just simply allowing that person to be able to go on your website and book an appointment . Well , I agree , home services brands are so busy it's hard to reach them .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 11:39

And then if you're calling them , you really need their help . And I have found where something is broken you want to fix .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 11:44

So if I can't read somebody I might call the next person , but if I can't reach them I can just book online right out of their schedule , especially after hours . I have pieces of my knowing that I have an appointment .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 11:56

So I would love that .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 11:59

It's why a lot of these franchises are building in-house call centers . It's because Bob the franchisee and whatever city I mean it may be great at functionally doing the product or service that the brand offers , but may or may not be the best person on the phone and , to your point , may not answer because he's in the truck or he's out in the field or his team is and he's doing something else , and may or may not be the best , closer or whatnot on the phone . But if you empower the customer to make that appointment and your team can come out and hopefully land the job that way . But that's just an example of trying to create a frictionless experience , empowering the customer so that it's just really easy on all the stakeholders in the process , right ? What do you see as effective online ?

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 12:50

presence .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 12:52

Well , I mean , you know one you got to manage your Google profile . You know you've got to manage . You know you've got to claim and secure your listings , not only just across Google and some of the major platforms , but we partner with the X to do this , and there's about 60 or 70 listing websites out there that when you're using the Thrive tool , we can go in and claim them and keep them up to date . You know , I mean there's nothing more frustrating . I mean , think of this .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 13:19

You know , let's say , you offer , you know you run a brick and mortar store and you know you're open until 5 pm every day . And or , let's say , you're open to 5 30 pm every day and last week you decide okay , you know we're going to start shutting early , at 5 30 or at five o'clock . And this consumer goes on their Google profile , sees that you're open until 5 30 because you haven't updated it , and then drives across town to be there at 5 10 and your doors are shut . That's a terrible experience , not just because your doors are shut , but because they may have just had to drive 20 minutes , you know , from their house out to your

The Importance of Managing Online Presence

Lance Hood (FranPro) 13:56

business . So I think managing your online presence is more than just like you know your website and your social media . I mean , you have a great website that's very fast and formative and people can easily , you know , use it . But then you know , your Google profile is becoming more and more , I think you know , probably the top priority as far as your online presence .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 14:17

Yeah .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 14:17

I agree , and all of it's questionable . If it's questionable , check the hours , make sure it's supposed to be open . We attempt to go out there . Then , if we go out there and it's supposed to be open , it's supposed to be open .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 14:27

And it's not . That is frustrating .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 14:30

Well , and there's one thing to this . This is the reason why I think you use Thrive to help manage your listings . It's that you know , if I Google such and such business , right , the Google profile is going to pop up in that section . But then you also have the organic listings , you know , down below , and normally that's the website . But there's also a lot of other listing websites out there that might have it listed and consumers don't always click the Google profile or the website .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 14:56

They may click a listing site and if you're to your you know , to this example here if on your Google profile and on your website says hey , we're open till five , you know five o'clock because you've updated , but you haven't updated it across the board , that consumer may see that . You know it still says six PM and they drive out there . So what Thrive does and this really was impactful during COVID is that it helps you update your listings across all your update your profile across all your listings . So when people were making really big changes to how you interact with them as a business , the people that had Thrive were able to log in and update it across 60 or 70 sites at once instead of having to go into each you know listing site and update their profile . So that's just one of the many features you know within Thrive that we make it easy on the business owner .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 15:47

Oh , I love that , I love that .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 15:49

And you know , having a whole bunch of sites where you want to update it online or have it all coming together . It's so important . So you guys actually take all the sites where reputation is found and revisions and stuff like that is your image , that's who you all are . They pull them all together into all these people and people can see all at once , and those are definitely ways that people make decisions , so you guys actually take .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 16:10

Yeah . So if you think about another stat is you know 85% of consumers view an online review as if it's a trust , the same as a trusted friend telling them you know that the business is good or bad . So if you look at the major listing sites , google being the main one , consumers can proactively go on there and leave your review . Most small businesses try to solicit that . You know consumer , you know that customer at . You know whenever they did business with them . They email them afterwards , you text them , you try to get them to review . But within Thrive yes , we have review management and review response tools in the platform that you're pushed notify , you get a notification when someone leaves your review and so that you can go in and respond to it . And then you can also use the CRM , the payment tool and our text and email capabilities to , like you know , once a customer pays you , you can send them a review request or you can send an email campaign , weekly , monthly , whatever to get them to respond to reviews . But the biggest thing is just responding and being notified that someone has left you a review .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 17:18

You know when you're a consumer and you're looking at a business for businesses reviews you're looking for , you know how many are there and the recency . You know it's like it's one thing to have a lot of great reviews , but if there hasn't been any in about a year or eight months or whatnot , you know , as a consumer you may not be as comfortable moving forward , you know , with that customer . So we're working on all that with our customers to one drive reviews but then also to respond to them in real time . What would you consider effective social media ? Personally , I never thought that social media was going to catch on in the business space . I thought everybody was going to want it just for , like , talking to their friends and family , and people would want to get a tweet from a Dorita or a .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 18:06

Cheetah but it's a thing , so I guess because it's funny . But what would you say people can do to be more effective with social ?

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 18:16

media , so people can get an idea .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 18:17

Yeah , so do you have an iPhone or a Samsung or some other kind of iPhone ? Yeah , I think we're both iPhone users . So , you know , every Sunday I get that screen time update of how long I've spent on my phone and if you look at , the average American now spends between five to six hours a day on their smartphone and , roughly depending the study you look at , 70 or 80% of that time is spent in app . Like in an app , first you know the browser or you know dialing , and the lion's share of that time is spent on social media . You know Facebook , instagram , twitter , linkedin , tiktok and these others for , you know , for a little bit younger crowd . But so I think just effective social media is to be there , you know to be there . That's where the eyeballs are , that's where people are spending a lot of time .

The Importance of Effective Social Media

Lance Hood (FranPro) 19:08

Effective social media is not just to be putting you know content out , it's beginning , you know , engagement from the consumers or the followers on your page . I mean , if you study really the algorithms around social media in order to appear in other people's feeds and order , get a lot of eyeballs and views of your own content . You need engagement . You need , you know , likes , comments , shares , and there's a way to do that , but I think one . You know , it's really it's kind of a non-negotiable you have to be on social media to have a business page on the various platforms , you know , then you can look at , you know , driving followers and likes and stuff like that . But you know , then you can look at your content and how to engage . But it has to be a core component of how you're going to market as a franchise or as a franchisee , as a small business owner , and it's just table stakes . It's just you know the way of life now . Well , I want to thank you for joining us today .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 20:11

I took notes . I appreciate it . It was all amazing .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 20:14

I really like the whole premise behind Thrive Bringing it all together so that they can simplify it , keep it in line and you can see how low that performers lead Seems so organized and so solid .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 20:26

The more you do , the more you have to organize right there for you , the more you have to continuously simplify Because you know the more organized you are and the less time it takes to do everything .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 20:34

I appreciate it . I encourage anybody in your business to take advantage of that $1,000 year annual discount .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 20:40

Love it all .

Lance Hood (FranPro) 20:41

I love the $1,000 link as a franchise and $1,000 template . So thank you again , Matthew , for free .

Matthew Gourgeot (Thryv) 20:53

Thanks,