Building successful franchise relations: Medicap Pharmacies, Inc. focuses its franchise relations efforts on concentrated communications.

We've been at this "franchising thing" for more than 30 years now. And one of the most important things we've learned along the way is that, no matter if you're a small chain of just a few stores or growing quickly with hundreds of locations, communication is critical. It's especially critical in building a solid and positive relationship with your franchisees. At Medicap Pharmacies, Inc.. that means combining "high-tech" with "high-touch."

Proactive Contacts by Teams

We are very proactive in reaching out to our franchisees. The operations department tracks all contacts with franchisees and we make a point of at least one contact a month with each franchisee. These contacts are the responsibility of a "team" of corporate people that we've assigned to a specific group of franchisees. The teams are coordinated by a manager of operations with representation from every department, including accounting, marketing, operations, managed care, franchise development, professional services and procurement services. We don't wait around for a problem to develop within our franchisee network. Through phone calls and these regular contacts we are probing for assistance that may be needed or to relay important and timely information to the franchisee.

Store Visits

We also have developed a detailed schedule that allows for three visits by corporate staff to every location during the year. Two of the three visits are usually handled by the manager of operations. These staff people are all registered pharmacists and former franchisees. Many of them still have financial interests in franchise locations. What a tremendous resource for our franchisees--their main point of contact resource person is someone who has "been there--done that" and actually used our programs in the real world to successfully build their franchise. The third visit of the year rotates between store development and marketing staff. These visits focus on those two areas while the manager of operation's visit is broader in scope.

Information Database

You can imagine the level of contacts and communication that takes place between the home office and nearly 200 locations spread across 35 states. Tracking and documenting who said what to whom and when it was said is absolutely critical. It's how we track all special requests, log complaints, and take note of every important item coming to and from the field. It helps us to do our best to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. To accomplish this, we created a sophisticated contact tracking system that all staff are required to use every time they have contact with a franchisee. It is a very user-friendly system that is tied in with our data bases and e-mail so the information is available to all at the click of a button. This proprietary, in-house system is called FSID (Franchise Systems Information Database) and it has proved to be invaluable when needed to document detail of every contact with a franchisee from day one, be it a phone call conversation, mail, fax, e-mail or store visit.

Intranet

One of the most important steps taken in developing positive franchisee relations is the development of our intranet platform. We've had this system up and running for several years now and it is the lynchpin of our communications to and from the field. The system allows for e-mail between franchisees and the corporate office, "real time" news, franchisee discussion forums and a library section that contains online manuals and forms. The site is Web-based and has user name and password protection. A franchisee can log on at any time from any computer and pull up the latest information from the home office. One of the primary benefits of this system is the networking and sharing of "best practices" ideas that takes place between franchisees via the discussion forums. We also provide links to many of our vendors for quick online ordering of specialty products. We subsidize the cost of this system as well as paying monthly user fees for the franchisees.

Web Builder

We also offer free customized Web pages for our franchisees. This helps maintain a standard look and feel to all our franchisee sites, while giving them the opportunity to make each one different according to the products and services they select. A franchisee simply goes to our intranet site and clicks on the Web Builder icon. They are immediately taken to a screen which gives them default information for their location and a number of screens to flip through which give them yes or no choices and open text boxes for custom promotional language. In essence, the franchisee is "building" their site on the fly. When done, they hit submit and the information comes to the home office for review. We approve and then publish with a specific URL that the franchisee can promote in their local market.

Annual Meeting

Our "high-touch" approach is reinforced every year at our annual meeting. Medicap Pharmacies, Inc. picks up the tab for all hotel and meal expenses for our attending franchisees. We also extend travel subsidies for certain compliance and incentive programs. And we do not charge any fee for attending our meeting. We try and make it as easy as possible for our franchisees to attend what we offer as a combination business and family vacation getaway, complete with continuing education, nationally-known keynote speakers, social events, awards banquet and company business meetings.

Leadership Retreat

For the past several years, we have invited top-performing franchisees to a multi-day weekend getaway at a resort area for some R&R and sharing of "best practices" ideas. This not only gives us a chance to say thanks to our top franchisees, but to include them in discussion of upcoming events and policy items that may impact our entire system.

Advisory Council

The country is divided into five districts and our franchisees elect one person for every district to have a seat on the advisory council. All expenses are paid for this group to come to our corporate headquarters three times a year for a day-long meeting where important issues and programs are discussed before being rolled out to the entire system. We also pay for advisory council members to attend the annual meeting every year. This important group is a great sounding board as we consider new programs and policies that can impact all franchisees.

Marketing Communications Committee

This is a complimentary group to the advisory council, with the exception that this group of elected franchisees focuses solely on the national marketing fund. This group reviews and approves the annual budget, reviews monthly financials and expenses and is also involved in creative development of new campaign advertising materials. Again, by getting franchisees involved in the process from the beginning, this makes it much easier for us to roll out programs to the entire system. It also ensures that our program is moving ahead in a positive manner, based on input from experienced home office marketing staff, our ad agency and franchisees who use the promotional tools in the "real world."

Newsletter

Every month we publish a hard-copy and an e-version of our company newsletter. It is distributed to every employee in the field and it's full of news from every department. We look for opportunities to promote "best practices" ideas and wrap programs and promotions around franchisees who have successfully implemented these things in the field. It's much more impactful for a fellow franchisee to talk about their success and encourage others to participate vs. hearing the same old message from home office.

At Medicap Pharmacies, Inc., we follow these guiding principles:

* Focus oil the Franchisee

* Make a Positive Difference

* Continuous Improvement

* Optimum Use of All Resources

* Commitment to Pharmacy Care

Our success is built on the strong foundation of a partnership with a local registered pharmacist who owns and operates the store, backed up by an experienced support staff and sophisticated business systems. As we look back and celebrate more than 30 years of business success, we also move forward, confident of a future filled with unparalleled growth, expansion and profitability, thanks in no small part to a concentrated communications effort geared toward facilitating positive franchisee relations.

William Kimball is chairman and CEO of Medicap Pharmacies, Inc. He can be reached at [e-mail].