Pink Spaghetti - Case Study
Identifying key areas for improvement: How Pink Spaghetti use ‘The Best Franchise Programme’ by WorkBuzz to grow their business.
Founded by Caroline Gowing and Vicky Matthews in 2009, Pink Spaghetti began franchising in 2012 and now proudly supports over 50 franchisees across the UK. Led today by Caroline Gowing, the network continues to thrive as a flexible, home-based franchise model built on community, collaboration and care.
Pink Spaghetti franchisees provide virtual personal assistant services to small business owners, helping them gain back precious time through diary management, inbox management, social media support, and a wide range of admin and back-office services. The brand’s promise remains the same – to offer small business owners the elusive 25th hour in the day.
What value do you get from running the survey?
The 5-Star Franchisee Satisfaction Survey gives us an invaluable insight into the heartbeat of our network. As we’ve grown, the feedback helps us understand not only what’s working well but where we can evolve to meet the needs of a diverse and expanding franchise community.
While it’s always rewarding to read the positive comments, the real value lies in constructive feedback. It enables us to identify trends, refine our support, and make informed decisions about the training, communication, and systems that keep the network thriving year after year.
Was there a particular area you wanted to improve?
In recent years, much of the feedback has focused on communication and collaboration across a growing network, and on ensuring support remains personal even as we scale.
We’ve addressed this by introducing a series of initiatives designed to strengthen connection, structure, and profitability. These include:
- The 4K Club, supporting franchisees to increase turnover and confidence in business growth.
- The Bronze, Silver and Gold marketing tiers, offering flexible support that reflects different levels of engagement and skill.
- The Access to Work support programme, delivering more than 11,000 funded hours of tailored assistance to neurodivergent franchisees.
- A complete sales funnel and quoting transformation, improving confidence, consistency, and client retention across the network.
Together, these initiatives have driven measurable results – including a 19% average turnover increase.
How do they use the reports? How did this influence the plans they had in place as a franchisor?
Every year, we analyse both the data and the written feedback in depth. This process forms the foundation of our annual planning and directly influences the initiatives we prioritise.
For example, recent survey insights guided our focus on profitability training, recruitment improvements, enhanced mentoring, and marketing refreshes, all aimed at helping franchisees build sustainable and thriving businesses. The survey acts as both a mirror and a map, ensuring that our evolution as a franchisor is always driven by the voice of our network.
“We would highly recommend taking part in the 5 Star Satisfaction Survey. It offers really valuable insights into what your franchisees are thinking and helps you to shape your plans going forward. As the award is based on feedback from you network, it gives real credibility to your brand and helps you to stand out from the crowd. We are so pleased to be part of the special 5 Star group!”