Turning unified payments into an operational asset: Your franchise checklist from Adyen

 Learn why unifying your online and offline payments can be the secret weapon for your franchise's operational efficiency from leading payments platform Adyen. 

Whether you’re running one or a hundred franchise locations, you know the value of operational efficiency. What you might not know are the multiple ways your payments setup can influence that efficiency. From easing day-to-day complexity to driving sustainable growth, here’s how your payments platform can transform your franchise operations, from leading payments platform Adyen.

Innovating behind the scenes

Whether it’s behind the counter of a QSR, the back office of a hotel, or in the rich data insights sitting within your own company’s systems: franchise success is largely cultivated behind the scenes. While payments can be easily underestimated, it can deliver endless benefits for your business when done right, from operational efficiency and decision making to customer loyalty and staff empowerment.

Take leading Domino’s Pizza franchise and Adyen customer, Daufood, for example. The franchise doesn’t adopt new technology for the sake of it: they leverage their unified payments setup to drive better staff and customer experiences every day. As Casper Mooyman, Head of Marketing at Domino’s Pizza, told Adyen, “Customers won’t buy Domino’s because we have digital platforms. But they will buy from Domino’s if it is seamless, secure, and hygienic.” 

Establishing a franchise mission command

Having a reliable base to run your franchise operations from is mission critical. As Adyen’s recent retail report shows, customers today expect brands to not only sell across multiple sales channels, but to provide a consistent and convenient experience that knows no boundaries.

Unified commerce – connecting your online and offline payments via one platform – makes such an experience possible on the frontend because it streamlines your operations in the backend. Think of it as your ultimate mission control.

Gernan QSR Beets&Roots is dedicated to making every experience as smooth as possible, regardless of whether customers are on their website or visiting a restaurant. As CEO Max Kochen says: 

“Linking these two worlds, the offline and online experience, is one of our greatest challenges. In the traditional catering industry, customers know exactly what to expect. There are staff to interact with and who will help tailor the experience to suit your needs. So the biggest challenge is to emulate this in the digital world and make customers feel like they are ordering in a restaurant.” 

By centralizing their online and in-store payments data into one platform, the Beets&Roots team gained a level of operational excellence not otherwise possible, even in omnichannel sales.

The benefits of unified commerce apply to your franchisor, too. As well as successfully executing the franchise operational standard, bringing something innovative to your individual setup can drive new opportunities for the entire business. 

Keeping your options open

What would you rather: your in-store terminal goes down, or your drive-thru terminal? As a franchisee, you’re probably choosing to sacrifice the in-store hardware to save the drive-thru, but the idea of either scenario is enough to make you wince. And you may not even have a drive-thru. What every franchisee should have, though, is the ability to adapt.

Having a unified payments platform allows you to add new channels and support evolving operational needs quickly because everything’s connected. Thanks to this inherent flexibility, you can enjoy far greater operational agility and countless backup plans. 

Think about fallback processing options. If your store experiences network connectivity issues, the right setup can default to offline processing, store and forward, or failover to 3G or 4G. That means you can continue to accept payments regardless of connectivity, and process them once you’re back up and running. 

If you’re thinking about expanding to new markets, being able to meet local regulations and preferences is essential. Adyen’s unified payments platform allows you to add popular local payment methods to your checkout, both in-store and online, with a quick and seamless integration. 

Regaining operational command

When the store is busy, you want to be on the floor, not manually crunching numbers in the back office. And at the end of the day, you’d rather be heading home, not sifting through reports. But when you can only access your backend system from your physical store, or from various separate accounts, you lose that freedom.

The right payments set up can help streamline your accounts-payable workload globally across ecommerce, in-app, and POS for all your payment methods. This minimises manual work for your team, helps prevent errors, and takes the stress out of your close process – while having all your payments data in the one platform allows you to regain control. 

Once your payments are unified, more innovative tools become available to you. Adyen’s Sales Day Payout, for example, provides greater transparency into when you get paid out, and greater consistency: you know exactly when you’ll be paid out for any given day’s sales.

Driving growth with data 

Having all your payments data in one place gives you far greater visibility of sales, trends, and new opportunities. This is especially beneficial if you operate in several markets or have multiple franchises. Domino’s, for example, found the sweet spot between a centralised overview and localised data insights for its franchisees. As Domino’s Head of Marketing, Casper Mooyman explained to Adyen: 

“We want to offer our franchisees the best tools to run their businesses. If you split out your online and in-store payments you have all these different systems and tools and reports from which the franchisee must collect the revenue per day, often all by themselves. 

“Unified commerce means we have a one-stop environment for franchisees to better understand what money they’ve made from which channels.”

Having cross-channel insights can help with both contingency planning - reducing manual work and the probability of error, while adapting to changes in real-time - and with future planning, such as when to roster additional staff for peak periods, what type of promotions to offer to foster brand loyalty, and how to adapt your pricing strategies based on average transaction value.

It’s often overlooked, but when leveraged correctly, payments can truly be a key strategic enabler for your business in a wide variety of ways. Consider your terminal: it’s the perfect opportunity to run a customer satisfaction survey while you still have their attention. With just one multiple choice question, the customer can pay, select their answer, be on their way, and you’ll have an extra data point to add to your growing collection.

Your payments ally

Running a business yourself doesn’t mean you have to be by yourself. That’s the beauty of a good franchise, and the same goes for a good payments partner. Onboarding, integration and support should be a team effort. Adyen’s fully digitised Know Your Customer (KYC) process is designed to reflect this, making verification easy so you can get up and running quickly. 

Here’s how it looks:

1. Your company requests an account
2. You receive a KYC invite via email and fill out your application online
3. Your company reviews your application and submits it to Adyen
4. We perform the relevant screening and approval process
5. Your company receives the approval and lets you know your account is set up

The right payments platform can give you the operational power to focus on the important things, the insights to connect with your customers better, and the agility to win and grow for years to come.