Customer experience is the impression your customers have of your brand at every stage of their journey, and it’s a key differentiator for companies across industries. Creating an exceptional customer experience, which in staffing includes candidates, employees and clients, is especially vital during times of crisis.
Long after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, people will remember how you treated them during this time. A great customer experience will outlast economic downturns, creating long-lasting trust in your brand and ensuring all your customers consistently return to it.
Recently, WorkLLama and SIA conducted a webinar with Brandon Simmons, former VP, experience and innovation at Allied Global Services, and Joe McClung, FloodGate Medical president and chief commercial officer, to discuss how to establish a great customer experience. Here are the highlights on creating human connections by combining personalized communications with AI, predictive analytics and other technologies.
Automated Workflows
Eighty percent of jobseekers wouldn’t consider future jobs at a company that didn’t communicate status during the experience. Given how many candidates eventually become clients, these numbers should give us pause.
According to Simmons, auditing workflows was a crucial first step for Allied, and that was followed by automation to enable recruiters to spend more time on personalization including ensuring all communication loops were closed in a timely manner.
Allied also introduced video interviews into its automated workflows, creating a special experience for candidates, even if they didn’t get the job. This is especially important now — with historic unemployment levels, recruiters can’t possibly respond to all candidates, yet making connections and minimizing response time is more important than ever.
Personal responses
Combining automated and personal responses enables you to maintain speed and efficiency while creating meaningful interactions. Begin by automating responses via an AI-driven chatbot and automated engagement tools and then move as quickly as possible to human interaction.
Allied uses customized automated workflow to guide candidates through the hiring process — from application to onboarding. FloodGate uses chatbots to engage its candidates, learn more about them, and then integrate that information into its ATS and CRM so communications are targeted to candidates’ interests.
Measure engagement
Start by identifying your feedback channels. Are you sending company-wide surveys? Do you conduct regular reviews? Do employees complete self and workplace evaluations?
Then, map the experience employees have on a daily basis. You might discover that employees want more training or information on how to earn promotions.
Finally, incorporate automated surveys into your process to ensure you’re getting feedback regularly. FloodGate treats employees like customers, knowing that if people fundamentally believe the shared mission, they can achieve so much together.
Referral programs
Allied helps people earn money no matter what their current situation or capacity through its referral program. Referral programs tie the candidate and client ecosystems together, helping candidates and employees make money working remotely while assisting clients in filling positions more quickly. And, referred candidates are five times more likely to be hired than candidates from any other source.
Concierge-level service
After one negative experience, 51% of customers will never do business with that company again. To inspire client loyalty, focus on delivering a concierge level of service.
What does this mean? You’re the expert. You know where to find the best talent, you know the network and the right people, and you know your clients’ challenges.
FloodGate realized that, while clients wanted better candidate-branded experiences, they didn’t have the time or resources to make that happen. So, to give candidates an idea of their clients’ cultures, FloodGate began creating videos of top leadership and hiring managers to put on landing pages that candidates can view before setting up screening interviews.
Create educational content
Topics can include everything from upskilling and reskilling to best practices for conducting meetings and interviews remotely. FloodGate created educational content for candidates on how to interview better via video.
And, when HIMSS, a major healthcare conference, was canceled, FloodGate put together a video of what people might have missed and sent it to clients. Such value-added content goes above and beyond what candidates and clients might expect from staffing firms.
As communities around the world socially distance and self-isolate, this is the time to ensure you have the technology and tools available to create exceptional and memorable human experiences with all of your customers.
This article originally appeared in The Staffing Stream.