Responsive service. Personal attention.
Every staffing firm says they provide these – which makes it extremely tough to differentiate your company on customer experience. If you want to set yourself apart based on service, you need to elevate your CX. Make sure your service is truly shareworthy. And be sure you’re not committing one of these 7 deadly CX sins from McKinsey & Company (the first 3 were covered in my first post in this series):
1. Myopia
2. Indifference
3. Worthlessness
4. Heedlessness
Leaders in staffing organizations often give too much weight to the voices of a few dissatisfied employers or job seekers (which is understandable, given how vocal customers have become). While it’s important to address customer complaints quickly and efficiently, it’s important to NOT let a few “squeaky wheels” determine the course of CX improvement efforts.
In staffing, successful CX transformations start with identifying the things that matter most to clients and candidates. In addition to surveying customers and mapping their journeys, leaders must:
- identify key pain-points (on both the employer and talent sides);
- prioritize the importance of those pain points (i.e., the impact they have on both customers and the staffing firm’s bottom line);
- focus improvements on the areas of CX that can deliver the greatest value.
5. Imbalance
Sometimes, customer experience improvements implode even when leaders have correctly identified pain points and clearly articulated the value of alleviating them. In these cases, it’s most often because their efforts don’t yield any obvious short-term improvements.
While long-term changes or holistic transformations may be required, leaders must balance those efforts with ones that create (nearly) immediate improvements. Otherwise, employees spearheading CX efforts may lose interest and disengage – leading to a fatal loss in momentum.
6. Fractionalism
A true CX transformation involves much more than resolving individual service problems. It’s about enhancing clients’ and candidates’ interactions with the staffing firm at every step, to deliver a richer, fuller experience. According to the McKinsey article, success requires a holistic approach to improving these four areas:
- formal customer satisfaction and experience measurement
- greater employee involvement (this is essential to creating a customer-centric culture and maintaining momentum)
- role-modeling by staffing leaders (i.e., leading the CX transformation charge by doing, not just directing)
- clearer explanations of why changes are needed
7. Orthodoxy
Staffing firms must ditch traditional, outdated service models and technologies to truly evolve their CX, replacing them with:
- cutting-edge design and digital technology;
- intelligence tools to measure satisfaction/experience, map journeys and track the effectiveness of new transformation initiatives;
- a design-thinking approach to solving service problems.
Need help transforming your customer experience?
Haley Marketing provides a full complement of solutions to help you dramatically improve client and candidate customer experience – creating happier, more loyal customers and a healthier bottom line. How can we help?