Fibrenew is a Franchising Tech Innovator: CFA Feature–plus New Color Eye Video
Fibrenew was recently featured in the Canadian Franchise Association’s “Franchising Trends” magazine issue for January/February 2024. The article highlights how Fibrenew leads the charge for tech enablement in making our franchisees more efficient and effective at running and growing their businesses–plus the web of support that tech creates by keeping us all connected.
Also, here’s a new video highlighting our very own Color Eye, a powerful technological system that is a fundamental part of why Fibrenew’s restorations are so spot-on and consistent.
Check out the full CFA Fibrenew excerpt below!
“Tech Innovations Reshaping Franchising into 2024 and Beyond” by Joelle Kidd
Despite its status as a well-established restoration brand, Fibrenew keeps on the leading edge of adopting technology to make it easier for franchisees to find business success.
“We’re very tech-savvy,” says Jesse Johnstone, President of Fibrenew. “We’re always pushing the envelope, and doing anything we can do to help the business grow, anything we can do to help franchisees run their business more efficiently.”
Founded in 1987, Fibrenew is a mobile franchised business that specializes in restoring leather, plastic, and vinyl, wherever it’s found “on furniture, on vehicles, in restaurants, medical clinics, offices, airplanes, boats, trains, wherever it happens to be,” says Johnstone. The work is done in situ, for customer convenience, with teams going to clients’ homes and businesses for their restorations. Today the brand has more than 300 locations in six countries and is on track to surpass 325 locations this year.
Fibrenew provides franchisees with their own website and support in SEO and online ad optimization. The brand has also built its own intranet platform, called Hive, that houses training content and allows franchisees to connect with each other, communicate with the brand’s support team, and more. Franchisees can access Hive on any device, “look up technical information if they’re working on something in the field, ask a question of the support staff, whatever their needs happen to be,” says Johnstone.
They’ve also partnered with a company called Jobber to manage client requests and help franchisees organize follow-up, from scheduling visits to creating estimates and invoices.
“It’s been a huge win for us,” says Johnstone. “Our franchisees are much more organized, and they’re able to do more jobs because of how organized they are. And then on the professional front, the customer side is elevated as well, because everything is seamless.”
Also helping franchisees streamline their efficiency is the Colour Eye colour-matching device and app. Developed over three years, the device is a reader about the size of a cell phone which can be held up to any material the technician is working on. “It reads the colour, beams back through Bluetooth to an app that we built on iOS that digs into a database we developed using our colour-code system,” Johnstone explains. A Fibrenew technician only needs to scan the item they are repairing and the device breaks down the precise colour blend of the fabric by percentage. “In training, franchisees used to have to take an entire week to learn how to match colour; now they do it in one day,” Johnstone says.
Ultimately, Fibrenew’s excitement about quickly adapting and adopting new technologies is in service of franchisees, who enjoy the flexibility and efficiency of this mobile business. The brand looks for franchisees who like working with their hands, provide great customer service, and are able to pass a colour-identification test.”
The full issue can be read here.
Join the tech-savvy Fibrenew family
Check out our free Franchise Information Report for everything you need to know about starting a Fibrenew franchise of your very own.
And get in touch with your local Fibrenew expert for all your leather, plastic, and vinyl restoration questions and needs.
Cheers!
