Mystery Shop
When the business environment is uncertain— who could deny that this year?— it’ s more important than ever to get the details right.
Franchise Update Media’ s annual Mystery Shop provides a scorecard for franchise development teams. It’ s a revealing snapshot of how well brands are connecting with the people who could become their newest franchisees. The best performers were celebrated in October during the 2025 STAR Awards at the Franchise Leadership & Development Conference in Atlanta. See page 44 for the winners.
Since 2019, Jayson Pearl, president of Service- Score, and his team have researched online form submissions and telephone responses.“ I always think of it as a diagnostic,” he says.“ It’ s a real objective check on the health of their inquiry process.”
This was Adam Redd’ s first year to participate. As director of franchise development for Celebree School, Redd says that reviewing the quality of franchise development websites was a learning opportunity.“ I really enjoyed the process,” he says.“ It forced me to look at things from a different perspective, and I learned a lot about how companies present themselves to candidates online.”
Read on to see how well the participating companies handled the important details of franchise development.
Online form submission
For roughly six weeks in August, a fictional character named Mario Jordan was submitted as a qualified lead at 102 different websites. Pearl says the mystery shop examines how well brands connect with potential franchisees during those critical early moments. A quick response is the first step in building trust and moving a candidate forward.
“ After companies see the results, sometimes they’ re surprised, and sometimes it confirms what they already know about their processes and the responsiveness of their teams,” Pearl says.“ One of the things that we do is make it objective. There’ s a report, and none of the questions is subjective.”
This year, researchers found that 44 % of the contacted brands called potential prospects. Of those, 25 % called within 24 hours, 56 % called within 8 hours, 2 % called between eight and 24 hours, and 16 % called beyond 24 hours.
In last year’ s shop, 55 % of brands called the lead at any point. The response was 41 % in 2023 and 55 % in both 2021 and 2022.
Pearl sees the numbers as both a reality check and a call to action.“ It’ s not satisfactory to say phone calls aren’ t important because it’ s all text now,” he says.“ It really depends on the person.”
According to Franchise Update Media’ s 2025 Annual Franchise Development Report( AFDR), the cost per lead has increased from $ 97 in 2021 to $ 351 in 2025. Last year’ s cost per lead was $ 271. The cost per sale has increased from $ 9,270 in 2021 to $ 17,550 in 2025. It cost $ 13,757 to close a sale in 2024. See page 38 for a breakdown of the AFDR.
Returning to the mystery shop numbers, 60 % of brands sent a text follow-up to a lead, which is 10 percentage points higher than in 2024. In this year’ s report, 35 % sent a text and made a call, and 15 % only texted.
When a call was scheduled with the shopper, 96 % of recruiters were available for the call, which is better than last year’ s 93 %. This year’ s no-show rate was 4 % compared to 7 % in 2024 and 11 % in 2023.
Pearl says it was good to see improvement from year to year, but companies shouldn’ t become complacent about their technology.“ There are lots of elements of the process that technology can streamline and add efficiency, but there are also things that can break,” says Pearl, adding that executives should require regular audits of the technology surrounding prospect recruitment.
Questions to consider include:
• Does your lead form submit correctly without errors?
• Do all the form fields work on your lead form?
• Does your CRM sync correctly with the salesperson’ s calendar app?
• Does your AI chatbot help or cause frustration?
Adam Redd
Director of Franchise Development Celebree School
Website shop
Redd began judging websites in July. After getting the list of companies, he searched Google for frandev websites. He found sites for 101 of 104 companies. He couldn’ t find sites for two companies, and another site was down for maintenance.
“ The site was undergoing maintenance, but there was no contact information to reach out to,” he says.
Each site was judged in five categories:
• Video content( testimonials and brand videos)
• Investment details
• Candidate criteria
• Available territories
• Inquiry form
Redd weighed each category equally, following the assignment’ s guidelines. For each category, brands could earn a 1, 0.5, or 0. Redd says that a 0.5 grade was for sites that had the information, but it wasn ' t easy to uncover.
“ If it was difficult for me to find,” he says,“ it’ s going to be definitely difficult for somebody else to find who didn’ t know what they’ re looking for.”
During his shop, he discovered that 65 % of brands lacked a franchise testimonial video, something he says is crucial for potential prospects.“ I would expect a website to have testimonial videos or at least some type of testimonial,” Redd says.“ Video is better. It’ s easier to digest.”
Jayson Pearl
President ServiceScore
“ After companies see the results, sometimes they’ re surprised, and sometimes it confirms what they already know about their processes and the responsiveness of their teams. One of the things that we do is make it objective. There’ s a report, and none of the questions is subjective.”
Issue 4, 2025 | Franchise Update | 53