Service personalization vs. concept uniformity: The case of franchised quick service restaurants
Résumé
A franchisor has the difficult task to balance concept uniformity and adaptation to local customer needs. In an attempt to improve their own competitiveness and profitability, franchisees are often tempted to resort to opportunistic behaviors, through deviations from brand standards. Since brand integrity is critical in business-format franchising this is a critical issue for franchisors. The purpose of this paper is to investigate an opportunity for franchisors to improve franchisees satisfaction and their commitment to core brand standards by granting them freedom to control the service aspect of the business. Peripheral by nature, services can indeed tolerate deviation from standards without concept infringement. The empirical research in this article, verified through two different datasets, shows that service personalization is a viable option for franchisees in the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry as a way to improve both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.