Staffing customers are quite the bargain hunters. All too often, companies assume that all firms are created equal and that the quality of service they receive is the same with each one. That can be a difficult assumption for firms to deal with as they cannot simply drop prices every time they are looking to earn new or repeat business, or match the terms offered by competitors willing to cut costs to steal job orders.
To gain a competitive edge, your clients must add more value to their own clients by differentiating services. They should implement a feedback process regarding their recruiting methods and establish the firm as a trusted advisor for the people they engage with. To ensure their team is set up to perform as effective consultants, they must avoid getting sucked into price wars with competitors and earn loyal customers. Here is a closer look at how staffing agencies can earn repeat business.
Deliver More Than Just Candidates
To establish a level of credibility with clients that goes beyond delivering quality candidates, they will need to stop simply taking orders. Even though their customers supply the job orders, they are not the experts when it comes to finding and hiring top talent- the agency is.
Your clients must avoid letting their customers take the sole lead on deciding how they want to recruit. Otherwise they will miss a valuable opportunity to set themselves apart from the competition, increase the worth of their service, and be proactive in earning more business from the same companies in the future.
It is important that your clients ask the right questions and push back when their customers are not able to provide good answers. A critical question recruiters should always ask is, “Why is your hiring process structured the way it is?”
It is always helpful to analyze the hiring process to allow team members to provide a valuable consulting service. The war for top talent is only becoming more severe, and your clients are on the front lines every day. They must use their expertise to question conventional wisdom and add weight to their advice. They must trust their skills in hiring the best talent and stand their ground, so their clients do not end up making costly mistakes.
Further Considerations
Another critical question recruiters should be asking in every engagement is, “Why are you hiring for that position right now?” This type of question will allow them to focus on what is driving the hiring decision and will allow them to go above and beyond simply offering qualified candidates for the position. Rather, they will become an advisor that will create the goals of the position they will be filling.
When they are engaging in this manner, their clients will come to them first, looking for that trusted advice and guidance, as they will trust the service and the quality of candidates they are being sent. It is important that your clients are not viewed as just another vendor.
Each customer is unique, so your clients must tailor their approach for each customer, taking time and energy away from finding new customers and from recruiting candidates, so it might not be plausible to do with every single partnership. This brings up the precautionary step to ensure a quality experience for customers and earn repeat client business – to analyze the behavior of the customers over time. This data can then be used to tailor their services to each company they work with.
Not every placement can be a win, which is why staffing industry EPLI is so vital. With adequate business protection in place, your clients should also conduct regular analysis of where they are placing candidates and how these placements are trending with each client over time. This information can be used to demonstrate how clients can improve their process. This approach will allow your clients to find that balance of delivering consistently high-quality service while still prioritizing job orders that will bring the greatest profit. By fully understanding what to expect from customers, they can organize internal resources to better tailor services without jeopardizing quality.
About World Wide Specialty Programs
For the last 50 years, World Wide Specialty Programs has dedicated itself to providing the optimal products and solutions for the staffing industry. As the only insurance firm to be an ASA commercial liability partner, we are committed to that partnership and committed to using our knowledge of the industry to provide staffing firms with the best possible coverage. For more information about Staffing Professional Liability Insurance or any other coverage, we have available to protect your staffing business, give us a call at (877) 256-0468 to speak with one of our representatives.