Training and ongoing support at the heart of Ovenclean franchise package

Julian Minwalla, Ovenclean Chief Executive, explains there is much more to training franchise owners than just the basics.

There's so much more to our training than simply learning how to clean an oven. Of course, that in itself is much more involved than it first sounds – our franchise owners need to learn how to remove and replace the necessary parts to accomplish the thorough 'deep' clean that enables us to deliver the 'good as new' results our customers love.

There is a surprisingly wide range of different appliances that franchise owners may encounter and, of course, they need to become familiar with the suite of Ovenclean products that make up our unique environmentally friendly system. All of these practical skills are taught at our purpose-built training centre, which includes a large kitchen with a variety of oven types for franchise owners to practice upon. Vitally, this hands-on experience is complemented by a minimum of eight days spent out in the field with an established Ovenclean franchise owner. During this time, new recruits gain insight into customer relationship building and have opportunity to try their new skills in real life situations with real customers in real kitchens.

Equally important is training franchise owners how to operate their businesses, including sales and marketing training. As part of this, customer database management is delivered as a Master Class by one of our franchise owners, who has great expertise and experience in this area. Our business model is based on building a regular customer base that uses the Ovenclean service regularly. That's why learning to get the most out of using a database in terms of inputting, collating and updating records is essential. Other areas include telephone techniques and customer service skills.

Franchise owner trainers provide feedback on a job-by-job basis during training and, four weeks after launch, we hold a business review locally so we can ensure each individual franchise owner receives the ongoing support he or she needs. All of the information given during training is captured in a comprehensive operating manual, which forms the cornerstone of our training package.