As part of Carvel's Refresh Our Image strategy, franchise consultants and key executives visit every store to train staff and managers to make and market new menu items.

Carvel Ice Cream has decided that neither approach is enough. So the Atlanta-based chain of 541 ice-cream stores has combined training via EZLink, its intranet site, with an exhaustive in-store training schedule that has field consultants and executives spending four or more hours in every single store for every new major product launch.

The whole package is called Refresh Our Image, or ROI. Since it debuted in 2003, biennial ROIs have helped Carvel maintain flat or positive same-store sales, no small matter in what President Gary Bales calls “a very tough category.”

The intranet and in-person support are indispensable to each other, Bales says. “Face-to-face time is the cornerstone for us building the brand,” he says. At the same time, “the EZLink is the support function to keep an open line of communication.”

EZLink, launched in spring 2005, is now in the midst of a major overhaul, important as it becomes a more crucial component of Carvel's franchisee communication strategy.

The new site, which was to launch in late May, includes a comprehensive calendar of product tests, promotions and rollouts. A new section shows renderings of new prototypes to help franchisees who are building new stores. EZLink's section for the Carvel Franchisee Advisory Council will contain meeting notes available to all franchisees.

“Every department, from marketing to operations to purchasing, has a page on that site,” says Jim Salerno, vice president of operations for Carvel. “Franchisees can find everything they need.”

Features that will remain include an online chat room for idea sharing, a benefit that franchisee Irene Macones finds invaluable. “I wouldn't be willing to give it up,” Macones says. She's not alone: Carvel executives say 60 percent to 70 percent of franchisees visit the site at least once a week.

Macones, a longtime franchisee who owns a 1,400-square-foot test store in West Paterson, N.J., visits the site once a day. She regularly visits the training section to download and print materials for her staff to review. Her favorite part of the site, though, is the chat room. Macones says she missed her cyber-visits with other franchisees when EZLink was under reconstruction.

All in-store training materials are available on EZLink, Carvel's intranet site.

Macones is also a big fan of intracompany e-mail. She doesn't remember the last time she telephoned Bill Purcell, the Carvel franchisee consultant in her area. “He and I e-mail constantly,” she says. Macones is unusual in that she's a more seasoned operator who makes good use of EZLink.

Younger franchisees are more apt to use the site, Salerno says. “Newer franchisees are leading the charge with using EZLink and making it a very good communication tool,” he says.

Salerno points out that when it comes to training, EZLink supports Carvel's key tool: in-store training sessions for major product launches.

This past spring teams composed of one of Carvel's eight field consultants, plus at least one corporate executive, traveled to all 541 stores to coach staff in preparing, sampling and marketing Arctic Blenders, a new line of frozen drinks, and several new blended coffee drinks.

This year's ROI involves Carvel's new line of blended coffee and ice-cream drinks, which were introduced this spring.

The in-store training program has evolved over the years. For instance, Carvel executives now announce the new ROI schedule at the franchisees' winter convention and then make appointments to visit each store. That scheduling is key, Salerno says. Before, “we were showing up at a store and franchisees didn't know what was going on,” he says. Now franchisees can prepare for the visit, even holding it during store hours so staffers and executives get a chance to interact with customers.

Macones credits her store sales, up 6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, to the in-store training, calling it a “mini pep rally” for new product introductions. “The kids get all excited about it. They get pumped up,” she says.

Intensive in-person and online training to accompany new product launches have helped keep Carvel’s comp-store sales flat or positive, no small feat in what President Gary Bales calls “a very tough category.”

“I always prefer face to face as a rule,” Salerno says. “But it's wonderful to have [EZLink] for other purposes,” such as updating a recipe or quickly changing marketing materials. And it is invaluable in backing up training. “The thing about training is that not everything 'sticks,'” Salerno adds.

Carvel's tech-touch approach is “forward-thinking, very forward-thinking,” says Steve Carvell, associate dean for academic affairs at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, in Ithaca, N.Y. (Carvell's grandfather was a cousin of Carvel founder Tom Carvel.)

Combining in-person with online training “certainly wasn't a no-brainer,” Carvell says. While Carvell says there is no substitute for “synchronous,” or real-time, in-person training, the intranet component both reinforces training and sends franchisees the message that the chain values open lines of communication.

“I think any company that doesn't start moving into an online platform for interaction with its community is missing a great opportunity,” Carvell concludes.