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Are You Giving Your Customers What They Want – or What They Need?

Child Disgusted by Medicine
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Ever spend time with a sick toddler?

When they don’t feel good, they may ask for candy, soda or ice cream – but all the sugar in the world won’t cure a cold. As an adult, you know that what they ask for isn’t necessarily what they really need.

The same logic applies to staffing and recruiting customers:

Shareworthy Service isn’t always giving a client or candidate what they want.

Yep, I said it.

As you know, the staffing and recruiting solutions you provide have evolved to become incredibly powerful business and career growth tools. But you shouldn’t assume your clients and candidates understand that! In reality, your customers may not truly know what you do for them – or what they need from you.

Your job?

Give your customers what they really need.

Here’s how to do just that, in a way that builds loyalty (and doesn’t make them feel like you’re forcing a dose of medicine on them):

  • Get to know them better. Deepen your understanding by approaching the staffing experience from their point of view. Consider their full range of choices when it comes to managing a workforce or finding a job. And if you can’t get the information you need first-hand, do your homework. Rely on market and industry insights, and develop buyer personas to “get inside customers’ heads.”
  • Use your ears. Take clients out to lunch. Survey employers and job seekers. Bring customers together for roundtable discussions. Use your active listening skills to learn what they want – and determine how much it coincides with what they need.
  • Balance listening and empathizing with your own expertise. Once you’re sure you understand your customers’ primary pain points, start building a case for your recommendations. Use data, case studies and even your own experience to explain your “prescription” for overcoming their challenges. And don’t be afraid to show a little passion! Expressing strong opinions (when they’re backed by facts) about what your customers really need increases their confidence in you as the expert – building trust and loyalty.
  • Respectfully challenge their thinking. For example, a prospect may think they “need” a temp, when in fact a temp will not resolve a larger, underlying business problem. Patiently educate them about the myriad ways you could be more than a staffing vendor – and serve as a true workforce and talent acquisition partner. Once you broaden their perspective, use scenario planning to illustrate the ways you could help them solve real business problems.

Sound like common sense?

Most of these tips are. Still, when new members join your team or things get really busy, it’s helpful to revisit – and practice – the shareworthy service basics that fuel success for you and customers alike. And if you’d like some assistance determining what you really need to generate world-class marketing results, our marketing educators are ready to help!

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