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Article: Turn feedback into fees by Mike Ellingham

Having spoken to half a dozen recruitment companies in the last month, I’ve asked all of them what their customers think of their service. All of them could give an OK answer, but none of them had any formal system for obtaining feedback from clients or candidates. It was only when I started explaining that they could generate thousands of pounds in fees that they started to take an interest!! 

Here’s how it can work:

1. Develop a short standard questionnaire that takes less than 2 minutes to complete that asks clients (and candidates) to rate different elements of the service they have received from both the individual consultant and your company as a whole. Include a free-text comments box and a question “Would you recommend us?”

2. Get the questionnaire uploaded to an internet web-survey site

3. Decide on an “inducement” strategy to encourage response and then email the survey out to all clients that you’ve had jobs from and all candidates that have had interviews in the recent past (e.g. last month or last 3 months) 

4. Telephone follow-up all those that have not responded within 3 days. 

5. Any negative results or comments received – flag immediately to a Director and get them to call to investigate – the very fact that you have called to investigate impresses the client. The vast majority of times it will be a communication issue and in cases that I’ve experienced, the client was “turned around” and continued to give vacancies. Thousands in lost fees saved that without a feedback system, you may not have even realised you were going to lose.

6. Any positive comments receive a call from your customer service team to thank them and ask if you can turn their comments into a testimonial that can be used in tenders, in award entries and on the website. Write the testimonials and use everywhere – I have used them to help win tenders, preferred supplier lists and two industry awards on the back of positive testimonials and case studies from the feedback system. Thousands in fees generated.

7. All comments are passed on to the consultant and their manager and form part of the consultants’ personal development plan- a pattern of negative comments can identify training needs and/or highlight to individual consultants that may not be approaching things correctly 

8. Measure the results and award prizes to the individual and team that receive the best scores (or if you’re brave make it a factor in the consultant commission/bonus scheme). Customer service levels will increase and long term fees will as a result

9. Publish the results and send personal email from the MD to all clients and candidates (even those that didn’t give feedback) saying what you are doing to improve service levels – a few of them will reply to say thanks and will attach live vacancies. More potential fees that you wouldn’t have got. 

10. Vary the questionnaire to ask questions about trends, customer views and performance v competitors – so you can further improve your service, tailor your sales approach and create PR opportunities

And the most obvious but most frequently forgotten:

11. Everybody who answered yes to “would you recommend us?” gets a call from the Customer Service team to thank them and also gets asked the question, “Who do you know who is recruiting/looking for a job...”. Amazing how many new referrals this provides because it’s on the back of a positive independent service answer. More thousands in fees.

Customer service monitoring has to be undertaken with the primary aim of benchmarking and improving your service levels. However – with a commercial approach it can be made to generate new levels of business from the start. If this all sounds great but you just haven’t got the time or resources to implement or run it then you can subcontract it to an experienced recruitment industry market researcher for less than £400 a month. Contact Mike Ellingham at mike@mesomk.com or call 020 8816 8825 for more details. 

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