As the needs of the business world today are evolving to comply with the Affordable Care Act, temporary workers now account for a larger percentage of the employee base within organizations. And as market demand for skilled labor continues to increase, more business leaders are turning to staffing and recruiting firms and temporary workers to help meet these unique pain points. According to CareerBuilder, 42 percent of employers are planning to hire temporary and contract workers in 2014 — that is up 2 percent from 2013 and 14 percent from 2009.
As flexibility, speed and access to talent are the top perceived benefits of staffing industry clients, according to Inavero, this is a big moment for staffing. However, client satisfaction in staffing declined for the fourth straight year. Why? Although a couple issues come into play, today we’re going to focus on one major trigger — responsiveness.
Lack of communication and poor responsiveness is simply poor service. But we are a service business, so it’s critical for success as staffing partners to serve clients as needs arise and requests occur. To boost approachability and promote your staffing firm as a business that alleviates the pain point of responsiveness, here is information that has proven successful.
Internally
To solve this challenge in a way that will differentiate you from competitors, start by incorporating responsiveness into the business strategy. Responsiveness and above-average communication should be an ongoing top priority, rather than just the passing “goal of the day.” Make responsiveness a component of yearly or quarterly objectives. For 2014, one of our firm’s goals is for branch managers and senior management to consistently spend a minimum of five hours a week with clients. By ingraining this awareness into your priorities, it naturally remains top of mind and eventually becomes a part of the overall company culture.
Externally
What are the leading traits reflected in your organization’s reputation? Once you know this, compare them to the traits you want to be known for. Along with the quality and retention of internal employees, the fact that “what we do matters,” quality of candidates, and loyalty with our clients, responsiveness is among our top five qualities list.
Some firms are available 24/7 to meet clients’ staffing needs. That may not be possible for others, but do your best during office hours to respond quickly to take the inquiry to resolution. For those clients who do call after hours, consider setting up automatic email replies stating a team member will be in touch first thing in the morning. Then follow through on that promise. Clients are seeking answers to questions and problems that affect their business, so even a simple automatic response is better than no response at all.
Since clients are working to find their footing in this changing business environment, ease the process and improve responsiveness by launching an ongoing initiative to deliver exceptional experiences. Creating efficiencies to communicate more strategically will not only gain you new clients, it will also secure current customers for life.
