Powering Remote Store Audits in a Post COVID World

With the holiday season ramping up, restaurants, pubs, gyms, and salons are preparing for a busy stretch. At the same time, COVID-19 has reset how franchises operate, and winning back customers now depends on visible safety and compliance at every location.

Audits and compliance have become the need of the hour. In this post we look at how some franchise owners are adopting a new way to regularly audit their own stores: remote store visits powered by digital platforms.

First, let us understand why staying compliant is so critical, and how compliance failures can lead to serious consequences.

When Brands Break Down on Compliance

Audits, if not done correctly, can cost owners their licenses. Food safety failures have triggered location closures, recalls, and sharp stock drops at major restaurant brands, the kind of outcome no franchise wants on its record.

COVID-19 has raised the stakes further, with revised safety guidelines from the CDC and WHO. At the same time, the pandemic has made in-person store visits and internal audits harder for franchise owners to carry out.

Why Walk-in Internal Store Audits Are Failing

In the wake of the pandemic, owners and area managers are finding it harder to conduct regular field visits to stores, for several reasons:

1. Safety of field managers: Field and area managers are reluctant to travel to stores and risk exposing themselves, the staff on location, and customers. This leads to fewer store visits, with managers coordinating over calls and spreadsheets and far less visibility into what is actually happening.
2. Managing physical audit logs: CDC and WHO guidelines for food safety and sanitation are getting more stringent, and stores have to produce detailed proof that these tasks happen on a regular basis. Keeping physical audit logs and history organized has become difficult and chaotic.
3. Reduced staff cutting corners: Many businesses are short on labor, so fewer workers now perform more sanitation tasks, more frequently. When important tasks are not prioritized, workers cut corners, and critical checks like temperature readings get missed.

With COVID making effective internal audits harder, some owners are going the virtual route with strong results. Here is how it works.

Virtual Store Audits: The Future with Digitization

In-person store visits have dropped sharply across restaurants and hospitality. Some franchise owners now use virtual store visits to replace much of their walk-in inspection schedule, using a digital app like Delightree. Here is how you can run a virtual store audit successfully.

You already have a complete set of audit checks your locations need. With an app like Delightree, you can build a custom checklist of every important inspection, from perishable food items and freezer temperature checks to kitchen cleanliness, then send that inspection checklist to your store managers through the app and schedule it at a weekly cadence.

Your store manager gets a notification with the inspection list and a deadline. The manager takes photos, marks off items on the checklist, and adds feedback through attached forms on any area that could become a compliance concern, all saved within the app.

Once virtual audit results come in across locations, you and your area managers can review each inspection and chat or call store managers remotely to discuss improvements. For locations that show major compliance concerns, you can plan a targeted physical visit by an area manager who already knows what issues exist and can prepare to coach and train the ground staff.

With an app like Delightree, you can also create specific training modules with guideline documents, images, and videos that your staff learn from, so every compliance activity is followed exactly as written.

All your internal inspections and virtual audit records stay in one place inside the app. When external auditors arrive for inspection, sharing the details is straightforward, with no physical paper or cumbersome spreadsheets.

Franchise owners are already running remote store visits this way, and much more. To see how virtual audits work inside Delightree, book a demo.