Customer Success and Account Management
How does your staffing firm handle these complementary functions?
While the ways staffing firms approach client support and account management vary, both are essential to providing a great client experience (and keep your bottom line healthy). In this post, we cover the ways each function supports and guides customers – and how to build the right service model for your firm:
What is customer success responsible for in staffing?
Customer success managers:
- serve as guides for new staffing clients as they begin working with your agency
- share best practices for working with your firm
- set expectations for employers and educate them on how to work effectively with your firm
- resolve service issues
- drive customer loyalty by providing shareworthy service
What is account management in staffing?
Account managers:
- understand employers’ business challenges and opportunities – and propose ways your services can address them
- upsell and cross-sell your solutions to increase account penetration (i.e., increase your share of customer)
- identify and develop service strategies for key accounts
- develop and maintain strategic relationships with clients
- are experts in your services and solutions – and how to apply them to each client’s businesses
- manage renewals and negotiations
Why do both matter?
In the staffing industry, having both customer success and account management teams allows each one to focus on what they do best. Your customer success staff can provide amazing service and build relationships without the pressure of increasing sales or negotiating contracts. On the flip side, having a separate account management function will help you build strategic business relationships and increase your share of customer over the long term.
Should your staffing firm consider changing its service model?
If your customer satisfaction scores aren’t where they should be, or if you’re experiencing too much client churn, changing your service framework could help. But before you commit to any changes:
Diagnose the reasons your service model isn’t working.
This post explains three surprising reasons for staffing customer service failures.
Know your “why.”
Reworking your service model is a huge undertaking; you should have a compelling reason for making changes before acting. We should know, because we recently transformed the way we serve clients!
Our “why” was all about providing better results and CX for our staffing and recruiting firms. So, after hiring a director of account management, we transitioned to a holistic approach to client management. This new model delivers the traditional benefits of account management while leveraging the knowledge and experience of experts across our team. Now, we are able to look at a client’s overall marketing efforts, assess the strategy we have established, and capitalize on successes across programs to deliver better results – and a more streamlined service experience.
At Haley Marketing, our customer success and account management functions work seamlessly together to deliver shareworthy service and great results for our clients. It’s one of the many reasons staffing firms have chosen us for 25 years!
