In the hotel industry, strategic development and marketing folks work hard to put a competitive package together. The package is meant to help all of the franchisees of the brand compete.  

Look at this picture perfect mimic of Westin’s Heavenly Bed™. 

 The Holiday Inn is heading in the right direction. They have delivered a competitive edge to their business owners.

 But…

 It is all in the execution, isn’t it?

 So, you might be saying, "Everyone has a bad day, right. Well in this case, it is the speaker of the client’s event I was attending. As you can see, they did not heed my advice the evening before, when I advised that they should put the doors back on the room. Thus in the middle of the event, the fellow pops in and begins drilling away. <cringe>

What happens when it is almost there, but those pesky little details crop up like a blister on a 7 day camping trip? It is every business leader’s worst nightmare. So how do you tackle performance-related problems with franchisees? The brand has every right to hold owners to the terms of their franchise agreements. Our clients use both systematic and random secret shopping approaches to stay current on franchise quality and service delivery issues. Tagging certain actions to poor or failing compliance scores, lets franchise owners know what is expected of them. Perhaps the owner should have to pay for training, quality audits and secret shops until they are back in compliance. Isn’t that a small price to pay to ‘get right’ with the brand as a whole? They are doing damage to competitive franchise owners who do ‘get it right’. Think about it. Do you say, "Wow, this owner really screwed up?" No, you say, "Holiday Inn sucks."

In order for the brand to stay strong, the Holiday Inn and other hotels must reinforce the non-negotiable standards of service execution with fervor or they will be replaced by stronger executors.