The evolution of CX
Over the past few years, the Recruitment industry has been through a few challenges that it has had to adapt to quickly, most notably Covid. Like the rest of the world the sector had to implement new working practices and a digital transformation of its own – on premise to the cloud. This has created more opportunities to use tools to help the sector improve its offering.
One area where recruitment is going through an evolution is around Customer Experience or CX as it’s now often referred. This is becoming a critical metric that many recruitment businesses now take as seriously as their financial numbers. Whilst measuring customer experience can be done in many ways, a staggering 67% of the Fortune 1000 measure Net Promoter Score (NPS) as their guiding metric for predicting business health and growth.
As consumers whether it’s B2B or B2C, we now have greater expectations on the service we receive from our suppliers. The data/information we have on service forms an important part of our decision-making process around purchases. Our purchasing is more considered; we’ll seekout insights to see what others in our network have experienced, and it’s now becoming as important as pricing and availability in the decision making process.
Kalpesh Baxi - Director at Critical Talent
Having built his reputation as a director at SThree, Kalpesh has become a well known figure in the UK recruitment industry. He previously held roles as the CEO of Hamlyn Williams, the COO of Selligence and recently founded Critical Talent. In addition he is an investor and advisor to a number of HR and Rec Tech start ups and the founder of the People Tech Pioneers network.
So what is CX in recruitment?
Put simply, it’s the overall perception that a customer has around their interaction with your company or brand throughout the entire journey.
In recruitment, CX can be clearly defined through the touchpoints a client and/or a candidate has throughout the recruitment process. Having a clear CX programme in place to capture feedback and insights is invaluable to help recruitment business leaders understand where they are delivering on their promise along with where they are falling short. Finance metrics tell you what has been achieved so far whereas CX metrics are a far better predictor into what will happen next.
Isn’t it just a score? Companies that fixate only on the score are missing the real value of the data which is the insights that go along with that score. Yes the quantitative data is a very important indicator of future customer intent. When the data is valid it is excellent at providing a cross comparison between individuals and teams into who is creating promoters and who is creating detractors. The qualitative data however allows you to really move the dial around service levels and what training interventions are needed for your staff. This is where you identify why clients have churned, where the growth opportunities are and what your reputation is really like within your key candidate pools.
What’s happening to those recruitment companies that use it?
Unsurprisingly, companies that have implemented a CX strategy are reaping huge benefits including:
- More engaged staff: their teams want to know if they are doing a good job, but also where they can improve. CX programmes provide this in abundance. It allows businesses to praise positive behaviours (embedding it into their culture) and to identify development opportunities from negative behaviours.
- Stronger customer relationships: this applies to candidates who feel valued and are therefore willing to promote you and refer you to friends and colleagues. This is indeed still the best and fastest source of quality candidates. Most significantly however positive feedback from clients can be built on to expand accounts and the negative feedback can be immediately acted upon to protect revenue.
- CX can help businesses move to that Trusted Advisor status: recruitment companies are now using CX data as part of their review sessions with clients to help them stand out from the competition. If you can provide data that unequivocally proves you are an outstanding extension of their brand, HR & TA are likely to keep you on that PSL or indeed knock someone else off for you.
- Increased profitability: there is a direct and proven correlation between clients who provide 9/10 out of 10 scores being far less likely to churn and being far more likely to have a significantly higher customer lifetime value (CLV). Hubspot data has shown that 51% of customers will never work with a business again after just one bad experience and recruitment companies that track this have the opportunity to protect that revenue whenever this occurs.
- Powerful marketing collateral: amplifying the voice of your customers is an incredibly powerful way of building trust. Think about how often companies use their CX scores in marketing campaigns. By highlighting this type of information recruitment companies are showing that customer experience is a priority and the response is overwhelmingly positive.
How does CX Pro by Talent Analytics help?
Companies using CX Pro have been really impressed by the ease at which they can use the data and drive tangible revenue generating or revenue saving actions. They have an automated feedback loop telling them exactly what their candidates and clients think of them and their people.
The product automates the measurement of every significant experience a recruitment business is creating and using AI will identify exactly what your customers love and what needs to improve. The team then guides on how to build a tailored process and what actions need to be taken against which datapoints.
As the market normalises and client relationships become increasingly more important again, these insights help recruitment companies understand development areas for their recruiters around delivery and process management. Significantly, it allows you to monitor those who may be good billers but are also leaving a trail of destruction behind them that is preventing you from scaling.
There is great value in any recruitment business adopting CX Pro as central to their CX strategy however it is recruitment businesses that are trying to scale where it becomes an essential. This is because after growing to 20-30 heads it’s where the real challenges of underperformance, attrition and client churn come into play.
What’s next for CX?
As recruitment businesses get to grips with the new normal in market conditions, CX will become a more important metric to review as part of the monthly review packs for employees and the business overall. Alongside finance and activity metrics it is CX metrics that will likely begin to take more and more prominence when considering what good looks like. The evidence and data behind this comes in abundance from other industries and decades of study. The recruitment industry is now catching up and I for one look forward to seeing an industry with an enhanced reputation that continues to innovate and advance.
