Start a When The Music Stops Franchise Business

At the start of a new year it is always a good time for looking forward, reflecting on past achievements and setting goals for what we would all like to achieve over the coming twelve months, so it was a very good time to catch up with James Cameron-Williams, who heads up the web development team at When the Music Stops and to ask James on his views on potential developments within the company during 2012.

 ‘What are your ambitions in terms of achievements for When the Music Stops in 2012?’ - James’s response was quite emphatic – he believes in the management team that has been assembled and would like to see the potential of that team realised during this year. He also believes that he can make a big contribution towards that by creating the most stable platform he can for stability and incremental growth.  

When the Music Stops are now running three major websites and James is responsible for two of them, we asked him what his plans are for these this year? James’s response was that he would like to see them far more customer focussed and interactive. Incorporating more of the power of social networking and customer feedback mechanisms for two-way communication. Allowing us to understand our customers and cater better for their needs.  

He would also like to see support to franchisees developing too - mobile technology will be a development during the year. His priorities are a more mobile friendly website, potentially an app for smart phones and also to use SMS and push messaging on a greater scale.

James would also like to find a better technology solution for bringing the franchise network and management team closer together. A virtual office to share ideas and plans in a structured format – so very good news for franchisees is in the offing later on in the year.  

And finally we asked James about the competition – how does he see that from a technology perspective? James responds that he believes that When the Music Stops have a competitive website as it stands, but he also feels it can do better and is striving to improve it continuously. He feels that as long as the company continues to do things as they currently are doing, they can get ahead of any competition in technology terms in 2012 – quite simply as the company has such a good head office team in place.  

James continues “I feel we have 3 quite different main products and they should be delivered as separate websites and then it will be easier to assess our competitiveness in these 3 areas as opposed to the rather unique stance that we have currently.

‘Matchmakers’ is being redesigned currently but there is generally very little competition in this area that are traditional introductory agencies. The difficulty is bridging the gap to the big names like eHarmony, Match Affinity etc. which are online services that sell themselves as being closer to a matchmaking service but without really being ‘personal’, as they can’t offer a face to face involvement.  

He feels that as it develops Matchmakers will given a much more ‘human’ feel to it in order for it to find its proper niche between online dating and traditional personal introductions agency. We are one of very few companies that now offer this on a face to face basis and ultimately that personal touch will be a massive positive for us.

So we need the Matchmakers franchisees in place to maximise on it.”
We thanked James for his time – that was an interesting insight into the developments that are important to him – we will watch with interest as the changes are gradually implemented during the year.