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6 | Franchise Business Review
franchise administrations were very reluc-
tant to have unit owners surveyed in such
a process. FBR assured confidentiality, that
the information gathered would only be
accessible to the investors in the company
surveyed, but not accessible to their com-
petition. They also focused on the fact that
any business who determines to be in for
the long haul has to set correct expectations
for franchisee candidates and FBR’s system
helps empower companies with the means to
respond to those expectations.
FBR slowly grew support, and the emer-
gence of Internet-platforms such as Amazon
Review and Yelp helped spur acceptance of
the fact that people actually do form opin-
ions of how a business operates and business
owners would be wise to know what those
opinions are. Of course, as Rowan notes, the
problem with many platforms for customer
feedback is that the content is so full of ad
pages, fluff, or people bashing, that the data
is not always accurate, nor necessarily help-
ful. FBR’s mission is to provide bias-free, rel-
evant data, which isn’t construed as a stamp-
of-approval or invalidation of a business. The
FBR surveys provide insight as to how fran-
chisees perceive their corporate owners are