During the validation process, the prospect franchisee conducts Interviews with current franchise owners.
Contacting franchises can be a time-consuming and frustrating experience because franchisees are typically busy people.
Many franchise systems recognize this and hire third party validation services to assist their prospects through this stage.
These validation services survey existing franchisees about their satisfaction on a wide variety of topics and publish the results.
There are franchise consultants who as part of their services will arrange for phone calls with franchisees not presented by the franchisors.