Franchise leads:
the right store, fast.

A network gets enquiries through more doors than a single business, and each door has its own way of losing them. Here's where they usually come in and what to fix.

Most networks route website enquiries with a postcode table: each store owns a list of postcodes, and a lead goes to whoever owns the customer's. The table is usually built when the stores open and rarely checked after. Stores open, close and swap owners, suburbs grow, and the table drifts.

Two problems come from that drift. Gaps: postcodes no store owns, so leads fall to a default inbox and wait. Doubles: postcodes two stores both claim, so one store gets the lead and the other gets annoyed. The franchise agreement should settle both. The disclosure document has to say whether a territory is exclusive, and whether the franchisor or other franchisees can operate a substantially similar business in it.

Online enquiries have their own disclosure item. Item 12 covers whether the franchisor or an associate makes goods or services available online, the extent of supply within the territory, and any profit sharing on online sales. If head office takes online bookings and fulfils them through stores, the routing rules are part of that promise, so write them down.

Paste each store's postcodes, then the postcodes from your last few hundred enquiries. The test counts what each store should have received and lists every gap and double claim. The starting data is made up, using Central Coast and Newcastle postcodes.

The best-known research on this is old but still useful. Harvard researchers sent test web enquiries to 2,241 US companies: 37% responded within an hour, and the average response time was 42 hours, among those that replied within 30 days. In a separate study of 1.25 million leads, firms that tried to respond within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead as those that waited an hour longer.

Franchise networks have an extra hand-off that makes this worse. The customer fills in the brand form, it lands at head office, someone forwards it to the store, and the store manager sees it the next morning. Cut the middle step. Send the lead straight to the store by email and text, copy head office, and send the customer an automatic reply that names their store and says when they'll hear back.

Then check it. Once a month, send a test enquiry with a postcode from each region and time the reply. It's the cheapest audit in franchise marketing. It's in week three of the franchise 30-day plan.

Leads pass between head office and stores, and the Privacy Act cares about that. The OAIC says a business with annual turnover of $3 million or less is generally a small business and exempt, but not if it trades in personal information, which includes disclosing it for a benefit, and not if it's related to a business the Act covers. Many franchisors will be over the threshold. Some franchisees will be under it. Get advice on how leads flow between them, and say it plainly in the privacy policy.

Following up has rules too. Marketing texts and emails need consent, your business name and contact details, and an unsubscribe that works. Replying to the enquiry is what the customer asked for. Adding them to every store's promotions is not.

One table, updated monthly: for each store, the leads it received, how many were contacted within an hour, how many booked or bought, and where they came from. That shows head office which stores convert and which ones sit on leads, and shows franchisees that the leads are real.

Be careful reading the source column. With ChatGPT clicks often reportedly stripped of their tag and referrer, AI visits can't be relied on to show up as referrals in GA4. A 'How did you find us?' question on the form fills some of that gap. The lead value calculator helps work out what each lead is worth to a store, and the AI search page covers getting the right store named.