Field Support Timewasters Cut the Fluff, Focus on Impact

What if your field team is spending more time on the wrong things than the right ones? Let’s identify the hidden timewasters and replace them with results-driven actions.

What Did We Actually Achieve During That Visit?

If your field support team can’t answer that question with clarity - or worse, if franchisees can’t - there’s a problem.

In too many networks, field support teams are flat out… but franchisee performance still isn’t shifting. There are visits in the calendar, conversations in the diary, and follow-up notes in the system but if there’s no measurable progress, you’re dealing with activity that looks useful but delivers very little.

This is what I call the ‘busy but ineffective’ trap. Everyone feels productive, but nothing really changes.

In this blog, we’ll look at:

The most common timewasters draining your field team’s capacity
Simple ways to identify inefficiencies
How to redirect time toward what actually drives franchisee results

And we’ll do it all with the same lens that underpins the FIVE Star Franchisee Success System: structured, strategic support that delivers commercial impact - not just goodwill.

The 'Busy but Ineffective' Trap

One of the most common patterns I uncovered during my research was this: field support teams were working incredibly hard, yet franchisee performance wasn’t moving.

In the most successful franchise networks, field support teams had a clear commercial focus. Their time was allocated to activities that directly improved franchisee capability and performance - whether that was coaching, data-led business planning, or strategic follow-up. They were deliberate with their time because they had a system behind them.

In contrast, in lower performing networks, support teams were caught in a cycle of reactive visits, excessive admin, and friendly but unfocused conversations. They were busy - often overwhelmed - but not effective. Franchisees from these same brands described the visits as "nice but not useful," "a bit of a chat," or "not really worth stepping out of the business for." The support felt well-intentioned - but lacked follow-through, commercial relevance, and a clear path to action. There was no structured rhythm, no clarity about what to prioritise, and no visibility of whether all that effort was making a difference.

This disconnect often comes down to one thing: lack of strategic clarity. Franchisee support teams don’t always know what “good” looks like, or what they’re actually supposed to be prioritising. Without a clear purpose, visits become inconsistent, support becomes unfocused, and time gets spent on activities that feel helpful but don’t actually shift performance.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if we don’t take a hard look at where time is going and what that time is producing, we end up pouring effort into the wrong places. And that doesn’t just waste resources, it undermines the credibility of the support function altogether.

The good news? Once you start tracking how time is spent, it becomes much easier to spot low-impact habits and replace them with behaviours that drive commercial results.

Let’s take a look at the biggest offenders...

The Biggest Timewasters in Field Support

Once you start examining how field teams spend their time, patterns emerge quickly and not all of them are productive. These aren’t just surface observations, they’re drawn directly from my research into what separates high-performing support systems from those that simply keep people busy.

Here are some of the most common ways time gets chewed up unnecessarily:

Using field support as messengers – When head office uses field managers to pass along updates or chase compliance messages, it drains time and erodes the value of the visit. Messaging can be done through internal comms channels - field support should be focused on performance, not acting as a courier.
Delivering 1:1 training instead of leveraging group learning or eLearning – When every franchisee receives the same update individually, it’s not only inefficient - it undermines consistency. Field support should reinforce capability, not duplicate training functions.
Unstructured or overly social visits – Building relationships matters, but it shouldn’t consume the entire visit. High-impact support visits are structured and focused on commercial improvement - not just catching up.
Overemphasis on compliance – In some networks, support visits become compliance checks. But the most successful field teams focus on alignment and performance. Compliance becomes a by-product of well-supported franchisees, not the main agenda.
Reporting admin – Field managers buried in spreadsheets, report writing, or duplicated documentation. When support time is consumed by internal compliance or post-visit reports that no one reads, it distracts from value-adding activity.
Problem-listening without action – A franchisee vents, the support person listens empathetically… and then nothing changes. While it’s important to listen, field support isn’t therapy. Without clear coaching questions or follow-up steps, problems just get rehearsed - not resolved.

These timewasters aren’t always obvious at first - because they often feel like “part of the job.” But they’re not. They’re legacy habits that need replacing if you want your support system to actually drive commercial results.

Diagnosing Inefficiency: Make the Invisible Visible

In the highest-performing networks I studied, support time was treated like a strategic asset. Every hour spent in the field had purpose and its impact was monitored. In underperforming networks, by contrast, no one could really say where the time was going, or what it was producing.

If you want to improve support effectiveness, the first step is to shine a light on how time is currently spent.

One powerful tool I’ve used in both research and client projects is the Field Support Analysis Log. This diagnostic helps field support managers step back and critically evaluate where their time and effort is actually going and how much value those activities are delivering.

The process is simple but revealing:

List all current support activities delivered to franchisees
Rate each activity’s importance to franchisee success (1 = not at all, 5 = very important)
Rate how well it’s currently being delivered (1 = poor, 5 = excellent)

By mapping importance against execution, you can immediately spot misaligned priorities, high-effort tasks that aren’t delivering, or critical activities that are under-resourced.

The diagnostic also includes prompts to identify:

Valuable support activities that aren’t currently part of the visit structure
Timewasters that could be cut or handled more efficiently
Suggestions for improving focus, clarity, and impact

When support teams use this tool honestly, it often sparks lightbulb moments and lays the groundwork for bigger, lasting changes.

Once this input has been gathered, the next step is to consolidate the responses and create a simple field visit review survey to collect feedback from franchisees. You may find they see things differently - especially when it comes to what’s helpful and what’s not. Don’t shy away from the tough truths. This is your chance to gather the insights you need to make confident, evidence-based decisions.

Start the survey with a question about how often franchisees are receiving visits, then incorporate key activities drawn from the Field Support Analysis Log. Ask how helpful each activity is, and what they’d value more (or less) of.

By comparing field team input with franchisee feedback, you’ll get a much clearer picture of what to keep, what to refine, and what to remove. And that clarity becomes the foundation for a higher-impact field support system.

Once you’ve identified the timewasters, you’ve also clarified the activities worth keeping and surfaced improvement ideas in the process.

Now it’s time to bring your field team together for a field support health check. If you only have one field support team member, this can be done as a solo review or with your Success Formula Coach if your part of the program. If you have a team, run a collaborative workshop, either in person or virtually.

The goal? To use all the insights you’ve gathered to kick off a meaningful overhaul of your field support approach.

Coming to the workshop with the analysis log results and franchisee feedback ensures everyone is focused and ready to take your Franchisee Support System to the next level.

Redirect to Impact: Focus on What Drives Results

Once you've stripped away the low-value timewasters, the next step is to realign the field team's time and energy toward high-impact activity.

Start with two key questions:

What are the real capability gaps holding franchisees back?
What support interventions will help close those gaps?

Instead of delivering support on autopilot, design it around what each franchisee actually needs. That means tailoring your approach based on their stage in the lifecycle (e.g., onboarding, stabilising, growing, underperforming) and prioritising what will help them succeed — not just what’s easy to deliver.

To bring structure to your support, use simple frameworks like:

The Five Questions Framework - A clear structure to guide coaching conversations, from reflection through to action.
The STAR method – Helps franchisees reflect on situations, unpack outcomes, and plan what they’ll do differently next time.

With these tools in place, every visit has purpose. Every conversation has a shape. And every action is aligned to performance.

This is where the shift happens from field reps who do a bit of everything, to performance coaches who drive capability, confidence, and commercial results.

What’s Next? Designing Visits That Drive Success

We’ve looked at how to cut the fluff and free up capacity - but that’s just the beginning.

In the next blog in this series, we’ll look at how to design field visits that are structured, focused, and actually drive franchisee success.

Because once you’ve cleared the decks, it’s time to fill that space with what really matters.

Final Thought

Field support is too valuable to be wasted on well-meaning busywork. If you’ve started noticing signs of ‘activity without impact’, now’s the time to course correct.

Start by identifying the timewasters. Then, work with your team to refocus their energy on the activities that drive confidence, capability, and commercial success.

If you’d like help applying the FIVE Star Franchisee Success System in your own network, I’d love to support you.

📅 Book a complimentary call to explore your goals and challenges:

Let’s make every visit count.