Last week I blogged on the importance of customer service in the recruitment industry, and how Aquent is surveying customer satisfaction, and rewarding our staff based on customer feedback
My story was picked up by recruitment journalists in Australia and the UK, and I have been fascinated by the feedback this concept has received. Comments on my blog are all favorable, but I have also had feedback that the concept is flawed because our staff ‘will be worrying about satisfying customers instead of focussing on making money’. In particular, some critics regard spending too much time on candidates as foolhardy because, in the words of one individual, ‘Candidates don’t pay your fees’.
Frankly, this kind of comment gives me tremendous encouragement. That competitors in the staffing industry can be so naive, and so blind to the power of referral, recommendation and repeat business, driven by satisfied customers, makes me very confident about the future of Aquent, and the careers of our staff.
Two days after my blog, came an article in the Australian on-line newsletter Recruiter Daily. Robert Godden, a HR consultant with People Magic conducted research that involved collecting 85 job ads (50 with agencies, 35 with employers), all of which invited potential applicants to call a specific person for more information.
In the course of making 85 phone calls, Godden was only able to reach seven of the nominated contacts, all of whom were from agencies.He left 76 messages for the remaining recruiters (after two numbers rang out).The “unbelievable” result of the experiment was that only seven recruiters returned Godden’s calls — less than 10 per cent.
After ringing 50 of the numbers again a week later, he got through to two recruiters and only a further four (out of 48) returned his messages – again, less than 10 per cent.
As a career recruiter, proud of what we do, I find this result supremely depressing. We run expensive ads and invite people (customers in my view) to call us. Then we ignore them. It is disrespectful. It’s a sad indictment of the way recruiters are managed and coached. But it is also a supreme opportunity. An opportunity for forward thinking recruiters to differentiate and provide a level of service that leaves customers “wowed,” Frankly right now, it seems just returning a call might ‘wow’ most candidates replying to ads.
Talent is the only real currency a staffing company has. It’s what clients pay us for and it’s going to get increasingly difficult to access quality talent as the recovery takes hold. Job boards will become less effective and in any event they only tap into the active talent market. The recruitment company that owns the talent market.. will own the market
Candidates as customers? It’s a no brainer surely!
At Aquent we have a global strategy to improve the client and talent experience. We know we have much work to do. But we are tackling the task with gusto. We plan to stand out by hiring people with the right attitude, coaching customer service standards, measuring our customer satisfaction independently, and then rewarding staff according to what the customer thinks.
This experiment pretty much mirrors my own experience and I love your take on it.
I agree totally, if you treat your candidates right not only does your reputation grow as an ethical and professional recruiter with both clients and candidates centric to what you do, but you never know when that candidate may become a recruiting manager too
I have worked in recruitment (both agency and in-house) for 6 years, and have used recruitment consultants to find jobs for myself and I am still amazed by the “I have the perfect job for you call” from a recruiter when they have never spoken with me to find out what me perfect role is.
Being candidate centric brings more rewards than them being just another deal chalked up on the board
As a small independent recruiter I partner with other like firms to work splits. We pool our resources and better serve our clients. I am continually amazed at the lack of returned calls and follow up from other recruiters TO ME! When I realize I’m working with one of those unprofessional recruiters I cut off any further business. My partner list has decreased over the years to include just a select few recruiters that believe that follow up and returning calls is essential to maintaining a professional reputation.
It is no surprise that both agency and in-house recruiters have developed a terrible reputation with candidates.
I’ve heard so much talk recently, about recruiters standing out from the masses, and differentiating themselves from their competition. After reading your blog Greg, the simple, and easy way to differentiate yourself as a recruiter, is to just return phone calls. Noone seems to do it, so why not go against the stream, and pick up the phone?
Cheers for the insight, great post as always.
@LauraVezer
Greg,
Great article and unfortunately there is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t hear about a candidate that has been mistreated by a recruitment agency. The negative side is that some people with generalise recruiters under the same umbrella as money hungry and against service.
I am proud to be a part of Peoplebank and a company that is also trying to differentiate itself from the competition through focusing more on customer service. We have introduced the Peoplebank Promise http://www.peoplebank.com.au/promise/. We are not yet rewarded on customer feedback but have an internal reward for someone who “passionately translates the words of the Promise into a set of consistent actions and behaviours”.
Keep blogging!!!
Regards,
@connorhughes
I may be wrong, but I used to work with a number of recruitment consultancies in various fields when I worked as a ’suit’ ad ad agencies and I can’t recall customer service being anything other than at the top of their list of priorities. Is this a phenomenon of the last few years? Have some people lost touch with traditional business values? Are some recruitment consultancies simply employing brash ‘bite the arse of a bear’ salespeople with no soft people skills or concept of how to look after their candidates?
It just seems very odd to me, coming from a service industry background and working with so many consultancies, some of whom are still clients and friends some ten to fifteen years later. Indeed I have worked with one client at four different companies. Her business went my way wherever she went – testimony to how good customer service can reap rewards not just today or tomorrow, but throughout a career. How on earth can anyone overlook the obvious? That was my first thought when I heard some of Greg’s show last week.
Customer service has always been a given for me, not an add-on. As I say, ten years ago, it was pretty much common practice, certainly amongst my rec con clients. Something has got lost somewhere along the way, but it better get found pretty quick if consultants want to prosper. Start by seeing a candidate not as a one-off wham, bam, thank you for the placement fee ma’am, but as someone who may want to move on again in a couple of years. Someone who could be placed maybe two or three more times in their career. Who are they going to call? Not the person who never followed up to see how they had settled in. Not the person who promised to keep in touch but didn’t. And certainly not the person who ignored the updated CV and all the phone calls and messages. Customer service is key – and profitable. It really is as simple as that.
Good points Greg. Speaking to so many canddiates I am also staggered how other recruiters don’t return calls. Eventually these people will get jobs and I know from experience that by showing common courtesy you will be remembered and this will pay dividend down the line.
I concur. In fact, I wrote a piece about this. It’s currently causing a bit of a storm amongst some recruiters but I guess they’re the ones most in need of ‘learning’.
Here’s my piece http://blog.onlymarketingjobs.com/who-cares-what-the-candidates-think/
Greg – loving your work.
Finally! Someone believes me. Thank you for giving validation to an idea I have tried unsuccessfully to “hatch” in our company. “Why are you giving advice to the candidate on reworking his resume or interviewing? If he is so dumb, we don’t want him!” Ugh! It is frustrating to get comments like that or even more critical. However, when the chips are down and my collegues need a candidate, they have no problem picking up one of mine… resume perfectly groomed, references checked and poised to win at interviewing. I think we all should keep our candidates close and communicate with them as a partner would do in any business scenario. They may not pay the fee but they are the agent that helps us procure the fee. Besides, if treated *humanely*, they can create future business through referrrals and enhanced networking opportunites.