The Operator Index.

The Operator Index is the only independent benchmark that tells a US multi-unit franchise operator where their own read of the franchisor relationship sits against their peers — the friend test, three-year trajectory, re-sign intent, and the specific points of corporate-relationship strain — across McDonald's, Domino's, Wingstop, the Yum brands, and the other major QSR franchisors. Every participating operator receives the full report and, on request, a confidential one-page read of where their own answers fall on the peer distribution within their franchisor.

Behind the benchmark sits a structured panel of conversations with multi-unit principals — the decision-makers who sign the franchise agreements, deploy the capital, and live with the franchisor's strategy through every operating cycle. Quantitative signals are banded and aggregated; qualitative themes — what is helping operators, what is hurting, and where the relationship is fraying — are coded from the transcripts and reported alongside the numbers.

The Index is not affiliated with any franchisor, supplier, or operator association. It exists to give multi-unit principals a peer-vocabulary for a system whose internal operator sentiment is otherwise opaque outside the bilateral franchisor-operator channel, and to give analysts and investors a supply-side view of the franchise economics that public earnings calls do not capture.

1. i.

   Structured interviews with principals

   Each issue is built from a panel of conversations with US multi-unit franchise operators — principals and decision-makers, not store managers — conducted by telephone and drawn from the publicly disclosed franchisee universe of every state-registered FDD jurisdiction.

2. ii.

   Six-question instrument

   A consistent six-question instrument administered to every participant: a brief qualifier establishing principal status and unit count, followed by an open-ended block covering the friend test (“would you tell a friend to buy in”), three-year trajectory, re-sign intent, the single most helpful and most harmful corporate behaviours, and DMA-level peer signal. The instrument is held stable across quarters to enable longitudinal comparison.

3. iii.

   Aggregate reporting

   No individual operator is ever identified. Every published figure represents a minimum sample threshold within the relevant franchisor cohort. Quotes are reproduced only with explicit consent and never attributed.

4. iv.

   Quarterly cadence

   Results are published four times yearly. Each issue carries the full methodology, sample composition, and franchisor-cohort cell sizes. Participating operators receive the aggregated index at no cost.

The Operator Index is voluntary and confidential. Participation takes approximately ten minutes by telephone and produces the benchmark against which every contributor is, in turn, able to read their own position at publication.

Operators are not compensated. The Index is not a lead-generation tool, is not licensed to any franchisor, and no individual response is shared with any franchisor, supplier, or third party. The research conversation is conducted by a trained interviewer; no audio is recorded.

No individual operator is ever identified. Every published figure represents a minimum sample threshold within the relevant franchisor cohort, and direct quotes are reproduced only with explicit consent.

The full methodology — scope, instrument, confidentiality rules, and sample construction — is published as a standing document at operatorindex.com/methodology.

Participation in the panel is voluntary and uncompensated — but every contributing operator receives four distinct artefacts at publication, worth considerably more than the ten minutes the interview asks for.

1. i.

   The full quarterly benchmark report

   The complete public issue — re-sign-intent distribution by franchisor, three-year trajectory bands, the most-cited helpful and harmful corporate behaviours, DMA-level peer-signal patterns, and every qualitative theme extracted from the panel, delivered as a published document the moment it goes live. The same report institutional subscribers receive, minus the raw cross-tab dataset and the verbatim quote archive. It is the only report we know of that tells a multi-unit principal where their own read of their franchisor sits relative to other principals operating the same brand.

2. ii.

   Early access, seven days ahead

   Participants receive the issue a full week before public release. Enough time to process the findings before the next franchisor town-hall, IFA conference, or refranchising decision.

3. iii.

   Private benchmarking, one page

   Optional and confidential. Alongside the aggregate report, each participant may request a private one-page read showing where their own answers sit on the peer distribution within their franchisor cohort: re-sign-intent percentile, trajectory percentile, and the specific themes they raised relative to the operator base. Negotiation-grade context on a single page.

4. iv.

   A fifteen-minute findings briefing

   After publication, every participating operator is offered a private fifteen-minute call with the research team to walk through the quarter's findings, ask questions specific to their situation, and discuss implications for their capital and re-sign decisions. Conducted by telephone; no follow-up sales pitch of any kind.