Franchise Prospects More Likely to Respond to Email or Text Messaging Over Voice for Initial Contact

August 11, 2021 — A majority of aspiring owners say that they are most likely to respond to an email as the initial contact about a franchise in the July 2021 “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com. Text messaging was second in order of preference for initial contact, followed by a voice call when respondents were asked to rank voice, email and text.

In the July survey, 62.7% said they were “unlikely very unlikely to accept a phone call from a franchise” if they had “not previously received a text message or email from that company with more information.”  Email remains the most preferred channel for initial contact, at 53.4% of respondents. Of course, the asynchronous nature of email makes it the most effective channel outside of business hours, and on weekends and holidays. It is also a more rich medium for telling a story or conveying information such as video, links or a pdf brochure.

Facilitating this order of preference is the ubiquity of mobile phones among business buyers. Analysis of 2020 data by FranchiseInsights.com showed that of contact numbers submitted by prospects in 2020, 75.1% were mobile phones, 22.9% were landlines, and the remainder (2%) were not categorized by phone type. The percentage of prospects preferring text as the first channel averaged 20.7% in  2020, and grew to 24.9% in 2021 through July.

The Franchise Insights “mystery shopping” survey is conducted monthly among aspiring business buyers inquiring about franchises at the brands of FranchiseVentures.

Franchise Ventures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.

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Published on Wednesday, August 11th, 2021.