Your Best Location Isn't Lucky. What Is It Doing Differently?

What your strongest teams can teach you about improving performance across every location.

Ask any multi-location operator which teams are doing the best work, and they'll probably have a few names ready.

The manager everyone loves. The employees customers request by name. The location that consistently delivers, keeps people coming back, and earns its place near the top of performance reports.

But there's more to learn from a successful location than its numbers. Behind the results are everyday decisions about how employees are trained, how managers coach their teams, and how customers are treated. Some of those decisions may be worth adopting across the business.

For operators overseeing dozens or hundreds of locations, the challenge is identifying which practices are making a difference and finding ways to put them to work elsewhere.

Look beyond the leaderboard

Revenue, retention, and online ratings offer a useful view of location performance, but they don't always explain what's driving it.

A salon in a busy market may generate more revenue because of its location. A fitness studio might benefit from limited competition. Two businesses with similar Google ratings may be earning positive feedback for entirely different reasons.

The details in customer feedback can help fill in that picture.

Consider a salon that consistently receives compliments about its consultations. Customers mention stylists taking time to understand what they want, explaining their recommendations, and making them feel comfortable speaking up.

An operator can investigate whether the manager is coaching consultations differently, whether employees have developed a more effective approach, or whether the location has introduced a practice that isn't being used elsewhere.

The value is in connecting what customers notice with what the team is actually doing.

That requires looking beyond individual reviews. Feedback is most useful when recurring themes can be examined alongside retention, revenue, and other performance indicators. A location with strong results and consistent praise for particular aspects of the experience gives leadership a good reason to look more closely.

Understand what makes a team effective

Suppose a fitness studio regularly receives positive feedback about how its instructors welcome beginners. Customers describe feeling comfortable, supported, and confident enough to return.

Maybe instructors learn new members' names before class or check in afterward. Maybe the manager has developed a coaching approach that helps employees recognize when someone needs extra attention.

Location-level analytics can help operators identify these patterns, see which teams are excelling, and understand what customers appreciate. From there, the opportunity is to examine the practices behind those results.

That might involve observing the team, talking with its manager, or comparing its approach with other locations. The goal is to identify something specific enough to share, test, and potentially incorporate into training.

When feedback becomes part of the conversation

At Fantastic Sams, owner Jaine Cantu used customer feedback to better understand employee strengths and areas for improvement.

As detailed in Edge's Fantastic Sams case study, feedback helped make individual coaching conversations easier and encouraged stylists to bring customer concerns to management more proactively.

The case study also reports 339 customers retained through Edge and $39,000 generated from retained customers.

The case study doesn't isolate the impact of coaching, but it does show how feedback can give managers and employees something concrete to work with. Rather than relying solely on a manager's observations, teams have additional insight into the experiences they're delivering and where improvements can be made.

For a multi-location business, those lessons become even more valuable when they're shared across teams.

Pay attention to improvement, not just performance

A location that's always performed well may have advantages that are difficult to replicate. It could have an established customer base, a particularly strong manager, or favorable market conditions.

A location that's made noticeable progress over the past six months offers a different opportunity.

Perhaps customer complaints about appointment delays have declined. Reviews that once focused on long waits now mention how smoothly visits run. Or a studio that struggled to retain new members is beginning to receive more positive feedback about its instructors.

These changes can point operators toward improvements worth understanding.

Maybe the team adjusted its scheduling practices, introduced a new training process, or changed how it communicates with customers. Comparing feedback trends with operational changes can help identify which factors may be contributing to better results.

It's important to investigate before assuming a particular change caused the improvement. But a location that's successfully addressed a common problem can offer practical lessons for others facing the same challenge.

This also creates an opportunity to recognize teams for progress, rather than reserving attention for the locations that consistently lead the rankings.

Make it easier for good ideas to travel

One of the challenges of running a multi-location business is that useful knowledge often stays close to where it originated.

A regional manager may know that one team has found a better way to handle appointment delays. Another location may have developed a particularly effective first-visit experience. A franchise owner may have introduced a coaching practice that's improved communication between employees and customers.

Without a way to share those lessons, other locations can end up solving problems that someone else in the organization has already addressed.

The information needed to spot these opportunities is often spread across departments. Marketing follows online reputation, operations monitors location performance, and customer experience teams review feedback. Bringing those perspectives together helps operators see which changes deserve attention.

Once a promising practice has been identified, the next step is to try it elsewhere.

A stronger first-visit process might be tested at a handful of studios before becoming part of standard onboarding. A consultation technique that's working well at one salon could be introduced through manager-led coaching at other locations.

Results should be measured against the intended improvement. If the goal is to help first-time customers feel more comfortable, for example, operators can look at relevant feedback alongside return visits and other indicators.

Not every practice will translate perfectly. Different markets, teams, and customer expectations may call for adjustments. Testing gives operators a chance to learn what works before making broader changes.

Give your strongest teams a bigger impact

High-performing locations deserve recognition, but they can also be a valuable source of operational knowledge.

The habits that make a team successful aren't always part of formal training. They may have developed through experience, strong management, or employees finding better ways to handle common situations.

Customer feedback and location-level insights can help bring those practices into view. From there, operators can investigate what's working, give teams credit for their contributions, and determine which improvements are worth introducing elsewhere.

The aim isn't to make every location identical. It's to understand what customers appreciate about their best experiences and give other teams the tools to deliver them.

There's a lot to learn from the locations getting it right. The opportunity is making sure those lessons don't stay there.