Early warning
By the time a bad store shows up in a monthly report, you have been losing customers there for a quarter.
Two different watchers run on every location, because there are two different failures. A slow drift compares a location against its own established baseline and fires when the slide is real rather than noise. A sharp swing compares recent days against the days just before, and catches the sudden break — a manager left, a system went down, something happened on a Saturday.
Both require a minimum volume before they fire, so a single angry review at a quiet location does not set off an alarm. When one does fire, the franchisee and your corporate team get it together, with the reviews that triggered it attached.
Monthly reporting is a rearview mirror. A rating is an average with months of inertia in it — by the time the number visibly moves, the experience that moved it is well established, and the customers who had it are gone and telling people.
Intervention happens while it is still cheap. A conversation in week one is coaching; the same conversation in month four is a turnaround. And the alert arrives with the specific reviews behind it, so the first thing said to the operator is concrete rather than “your numbers are down.”