We just returned from the International Franchise Association’s 2014 Annual Convention in New Orleans. As usual, the event was a great success. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth to say hello and learn more about how we help turn calls into customers. And congratulations to Zach Collinger of SkyZone, winner of our iPad Air giveaway!

This year's theme was "Driving Growth in Challenging Times," and educational sessions were full, along with the general sessions featuring Leon Panetta, former U.S. secretary of defense and CIA director; Cheryl Bachelder, CEO of Popeye's; and Todd Rowe, Google's managing director of global channel sales. Topics covered throughout the conference included management and leadership, marketing and sales strategies and best practices, and much more.

We facilitated a business solution roundtable session titled “How mobile is changing the customer experience.” Much of the discussion focused on these topics: 1) understanding which mobile technologies and marketing tools are relevant for the franchise's particular business model; 2) prioritizing the various mobile technologies, software solutions and web-based tools without breaking the budget; and 3) ensuring consistency across franchisees and tight integration within the whole customer experience system to better drive marketing campaigns and measure ROI.

We'll explore these topics further in future posts, so stay tuned!