Executive Summary

Rapid franchise growth creates an inevitable support pressure: how do you maintain consistent, high-quality franchisee support without proportionally scaling operational costs? DivaDance, a pop-inspired dance franchise with over 50 U.S. locations, solved this challenge by implementing CoCo, their AI agent, brought to life through EZee Assist's AI-powered support and ticketing platform. The result: 50%+ reduction in support tickets, immediate response times, and strengthened franchisee relationships—all while maintaining brand consistency at scale.

Franchisor Testimonial Impact

“Before we partnered with EZee Assist, my franchisees felt frustrated with all of the places they had to look for support and tools. We were constantly on call to field the same ‘quick questions’ across my system. Since we implemented EZee Assist, my owners not only get faster answers to their questions and a shorter path to the resources we have for them, but my human-power has been reallocated to coaching, relationship building, and innovation. The impact of that has led to increased owner retention, more topline revenue, and happier employees at my HQ!”
— Jami Stigliano, Founder, CEO, Diva Dance

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Company Profile

Industry: Fitness & Entertainment Franchising
Locations: 50+ franchise locations nationwide
Mission: Empowering adults through confidence-building dance experiences

DivaDance has built a distinctive brand around choreography-based fitness classes and parties that celebrate self-expression and community. Their adult-focused programming combines pop music with inclusive, confidence-building movement—a formula that has driven consistent expansion across multiple markets.

However, this growth trajectory introduced operational complexities that threatened to undermine the very community-centred values that fuel their success.

The Challenge: Support at Scale

As DivaDance expanded beyond 50 locations, three critical pain points emerged:

Communication Fragmentation

Franchisee inquiries were scattered across multiple channels—email, phone calls, and informal messages—creating response delays and accountability gaps. Without a centralized support system, urgent questions could go unanswered for hours or even days.

Resource-Intensive Repetition

Support staff found themselves answering identical operational questions multiple times daily. This reactive approach consumed significant bandwidth that could have been allocated to strategic growth initiatives.

Potential Brand Consistency Erosion

Inconsistent response quality and tone threatened DivaDance's carefully cultivated brand voice. Without standardized messaging protocols, communication sometimes failed to reflect the confidence and community focus that defines the franchise.

The Strategic Question: How could DivaDance scale franchisee support capacity without compromising response quality or inflating operational costs?

The Solution: CoCo by EZee Assist

DivaDance partnered with EZee Assist to deploy CoCo, an AI-powered support assistant specifically configured for their franchise operations and support. Rather than replacing human support, CoCo was designed as an intelligent first-response system that could handle routine inquiries while seamlessly escalating complex issues to human specialists.

Native Slack Integration

CoCo operates within franchisees' existing Slack workspaces, eliminating adoption friction and providing support where teams already collaborate.

Intelligent Triage System

The platform distinguishes between routine queries requiring immediate AI responses and complex issues that benefit from human expertise, routing ticketed inquiries to the appropriate team member.

Every AI-generated response is trained on DivaDance's brand voice and values, ensuring consistent messaging that reinforces the franchise's confidence-building, community-focused identity.

Analytics & Optimization

Built-in reporting provides leadership with visibility into common inquiry patterns, enabling proactive resource development and continuous support improvement.

Implementation & Results

Response Time Optimization‍

Franchisees now receive instant answers to common questions, eliminating the delays that previously created frustration and operational inefficiencies.

60%+ Ticket Volume Reduction‍

By automatically resolving routine inquiries, CoCo freed human support specialists to focus on complex, high-value interactions requiring strategic guidance.

Enhanced Franchisee Confidence‍

Consistent, brand-aligned responses strengthened franchisees' trust in corporate support, reinforcing the collaborative partnership essential to franchise success.

Strategic Resource Reallocation‍

Leadership teams reclaimed significant bandwidth previously devoted to reactive support, enabling greater focus on expansion planning, franchisee coaching, and strategic initiatives.

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Business Transformation

The CoCo implementation represents more than operational efficiency—it enabled a fundamental shift in DivaDance's support philosophy from reactive problem-solving to proactive franchisee empowerment.

Scalable Foundation

With AI handling routine inquiries, DivaDance can onboard new franchisees without proportionally increasing support infrastructure, creating a sustainable growth model.

Brand Consistency Assurance

Every support interaction now reinforces DivaDance's core values, strengthening brand identity across all franchise locations.

Strategic Focus Enhancement

Leadership teams can now dedicate premium time to growth strategy, franchisee development, and innovation rather than repetitive operational support.

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Looking Forward

As DivaDance continues its national expansion, CoCo provides the operational foundation for sustainable growth. New franchisees receive the same immediate, high-quality support as established locations, ensuring consistent brand execution regardless of system size.

The platform's analytics capabilities also enable DivaDance to identify emerging support needs proactively, developing resources before gaps impact franchisee operations.

Ultimately, EZee Assist’s solution will enable CoCo to execute agentic actions through the Diva Dance tech stack. Imagine being able to perform actions directly in CRM or FMS just by talking to CoCo. Watch this space to see that case study in action very soon!