Read the websites of any ten random recruitment companies. From any country. In the ‘About Us’ or ‘Our Services’ section, you will almost certainly find glowing and poetic prose about ‘customer service’ and the ‘customer comes first’ and ‘exceptional standards of service delivery’ and many other cliche-ridden phrases. But these claims were not written without sincerity. The companies professing to provide flawless service intended that to be the case I am sure. The desire to be excellent is real in most cases.
It is the delivery on the service promise that is the problem. All companies, in all industries, find it challenging to consistently deliver top service across a broad customer base. Indeed, it takes a very special business to do that.
But recruitment is in a class of its own when it comes to over-promising and under-delivering.
Recruitment and staffing is a special case because we ask our recruiters to deliver on the customer experience, but then we reward them largely for the dollars they individually generate, regardless of how many candidates and clients they burn along the way. So there is a mismatch of message and of motivation.
At Aquent, one of our key global objectives is to demonstrate the best customer service and loyalty in the staffing industry worldwide. But that lofty goal can’t be measured by self-acclimation! It has to be empirical and unbiased. So we have engaged Inavero, a specialist customer-satisfaction survey firm – focussing in the staffing and professional service arena – to survey our customer base, in every one of our 70 offices, every six months
We have introduced a customer service charter across our business, set up local task-forces to drive response times for talent and clients, and now we survey what our customers think of us on a regular basis. And trust me when I tell you it’s a scary thing to do! People don’t hold back, and some individual remarks via the survey can sting! And in some cases, where we have let our customers down, it’s well deserved. But the key thing is that we are able to quickly move into service-recovery mode. Even more telling, we get an overall customer satisfaction score for each business unit, and we can track quarterly improvement and change.
And that is super cool! But we have gone one step further
From January 2010 all Aquent Agents (consultants) in the International business now have a big chunk of their compensation linked to improvements in these customer service scores. So at Aquent we compensate people with a fair base salary, and exceptional results attract meaningful bonuses, as is true of most of our industry. But now our recruiters can earn a 25% “kicker” on top of their bonus, if their Inavero customer score meets the set benchmark of improvement and excellence.
Of course Aquent is a commercial enterprise. Revenue and profit is our lifeblood. But so is brand and reputation and self-esteem of our own staff. And frankly, providing exceptional customer service is directly linked to commercial success anyway. Great recruitment firms will differentiate their offering in two distinct ways, I believe. Firstly, by specialisation and depth of knowledge, and secondly through exceptional customer service.
But talking about customer service can become a stream of so many cliches. Meaningless spin without substance and without any grunt behind it to actually drive better customer experience.
At Aquent we will not be duped by our own PR. We measure what the customers think. We cop what they tell us on the chin. We work out ways to fix the problems.
And then we reward our staff when the customers are happy
Outstanding approach to category and business change. You could be starting the transformation of recruitment to the Service business we all thought we were in.
Great conversation on the Bill Boorman show. Looking forward to meeting up one day.
Best regards
Alan
Just great, well done Greg, now that’s leading the way…slightly embarrassed you beat me to it
But if you don’t mind i’m gonna steal it, anyone asks, it was my idea, OK? 
Roger
It’s yours Roger, always was.
Greg
Welcome to the dark side Greg and im somewhat pleased to say we are already there – so Roger that makes you third im afraid, sorry about that! This was one of our founding principles and for 17 years we have made client and candidate feedback core to peoples performance.
We are slightly different and have perhaps gone further in that up to 2/3rds of a consultants TOTAL variable is based on this feedback, rather than a slug on top.
And for those that might read this post and think this is fluff or guff think again. Whenever im asked by clients the usual ‘how are you different’ we normally have a conversation that goes something like:
ME: “Well, for starters we don’t pay commissions based on targets, like our competitors”
CLIENT: “So who decides what the consultants get?”
ME: “You do.”
Believe me, its pretty powerful stuff. But as Greg says, its not easy, feedback is not only hard to take, its hard to respond to and manage properly if you are not bought into it totally as a business and set of leaders. You have to believe. And a lot of the recruitment industry leaders i know actually don’t.
Good luck Greg, its actually quite inspiring and in some ways somewhat of a vindication to see someone with such a global reach buy into this approach. Shall we start a club?!
It’s a nice one. A good place for discussing .
Well played, Greg. It’s an interesting thing, service delivery. Speaking from the Managed Service (MSP) side of the equation, I can tell you that it’s an industry standard to create SLA’s that speak to the satisfaction of our customers – in our case, those being the staffing companies we manage. Putting our fees at risk in exchange for a satisfied supply base seems an odd model, but is heroic in the eys of our end customers that we “put our money where our mouth is..” It’s a universal goal in the staffing space, and something that truly separates top players from the rest.
Fantastic approach Greg – if only more companies took note. Recruitment is supposed to be a service industry and yet 90% of the people working in it have no regard for customer service. I have started an independent website in the tripadvisor model that is aimed at this very issue. http://www.recruitmentreviews.com
If Aquent (or anyone else) would like to get involved that would be great.