Inavero’s Best of Staffing™ Award, presented by CareerBuilder, is the nation’s only award program that recognizes firms that receive remarkable reviews from their clients and talent. The staffing firms who truly provide a remarkable experience are honored on the final 2012 Best of Staffing lists (presented at the end of this post).

Inavero surveyed participating staffing firms to obtain an understanding of unique service behaviors. As you review the findings below, think about your firm’s internal practices and explore different opportunities to evolve and improve.

Notable Findings & Highlights:

1. Revenue of 2012 Best of Staffing winners outpaced industry growth by more than 50 percent.
2. Only half of the participants expect their 2012 revenue to grow faster than their 2011 revenue.
3. Best of Staffing Client winners were more than three times as likely to say culture match was the most important attribute to ensure a successful placement. Those who didn’t make the Best of Staffing list were more likely to say it was matching technical skills.
4. Seventy-two percent of Best of Staffing Client winners have some form of health care available for their talent.
5. More than half of Best of Staffing Client winners get back to their clients within an hour, compared to only 25 percent of those who didn’t make the list.
6. Eighty-nine percent of participants respond to clients within the same day, but only 54 percent have the same policy for their talent.
7. Only half of participants report staying in contact with talent at least once a month while they are on assignment.
8. Participants report spending less than 20 percent of time with their clients educating them or discussing current recruiting trends. The majority of the time is spent selling.
9. Seventy-one percent of participating staffing firms that reported growth above the industry survey their clients at least twice a year, compared to just over half of those who grew at the industry level or slower.
10. Qualifiers of the 2012 Best of Staffing list for exceptional client service spend an average of $6,000 training each new internal employee, nearly 28 percent more than those who didn’t qualify for the list.

*NPS, short for Net Promoter Score®, is a technique popularized by former Bain consultant and author, Fred Reichheld. NPS simplifies satisfaction measurement down to a single number comparable across organizations and industries. The score is calculated by subtracting the firm’s detractors (those who rate the organization between a 0 and 6) from the promoters (those who rate the organization a 9 or 10).

It’s common knowledge that getting the customer experience right is critical to business growth. So why do so many businesses still get it wrong? I recently had the opportunity to sit down with business expert and New York Times bestselling author Tim Sanders to talk about effective customer experience and customer relationship management strategies and how these apply to the staffing and recruiting industry.

The always insightful Sanders discussed how an ever-evolving business landscape calls for change — not just within the organization, but among managers themselves. He has been instumental in teaching me strategies necessary to drive organizational change, the ways to identify when change is needed and solutions for overcoming any challenges along the way. I’m thrilled to share some additional points that made me rethink my leadership style and how I conduct business.

An Interview with Tim Sanders:

Gilpin: In your best-selling novel, Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends, you teach your readers what it means to become a lovecat. How could staffing and recruiting firms benefit from practicing business the lovecat way?

Sanders: When I say that someone is a business lovecat, I mean that she is successful because she’s focused on growing relationships through giving. She creates success in other people’s lives, and they in turn bring incredible opportunities into hers. It’s a virtuous circle. Of course, this is easier said than done. For many, we believe that business is a dogeat- dog world, where few can really be trusted. For staffing and recruiting firms, the secret then is to focus on helping your end customers succeed – both at the enterprise and professional level.

If, for example, you mentor your clients on the market, the playing field and the industry, you will expand your relationship. This leads to loyalty, better information for future RFPs, forgiveness when things go wrong and a host of other business benefits.

In short, don’t just sell solutions, sell relationship driven solutions.

Gilpin: Your most recent book, Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence, explains the importance of confidence on both a personal and professional level. Do you think these principles apply to professionals in an industry in which technology is used increasingly in place of human interaction?

Sanders: When you possess a confident business outlook, you’ll embrace new technologies and leverage them. If you are just ‘trying to get by’, you’ll hold on to legacy ways of doing things and fear anything that requires an investment of time or money. I’ve learned that confidence is the key to being innovative and current.

For many staffing and recruiting professionals, the last few years might have sucked the confidence out of you – dealing with customers that were more concerned with price than value (convenience, quality, speed). This might impact the quality of your relationships internally or with customers, where you’ve become transactional.

To move the conversation forward again (from problems to solutions) is to move the business forward again. The good news is that the recession is an equal opportunity fear machine – as bad as you have it, your competitors have it just the same. Whoever gets their ‘mojo’ back first is likely to be the disrupter not the disrupted.

Gilpin: What are a few of the main pieces of advice for indiviudals working within the staffing and recruiting industry?

Sanders:

• You must feed your mind good stuff. Reduce the Chicken Little talk. Increase your professional development and innovation research.
• Move the conversation forward. Focus on the solutions required by your customers and what your company can bring to bear on them.
• Invest in relationships. Program mentoring and networking into your ‘Customer Relationship Management’ approach.
• Measure business success beyond your balance sheet. Look at the difference you make for the customer’s business instead.

For more great advice from Tim Sanders, join our Staffing Leadership Webinar Series: Experience Matters led by Sanders, follow him on Twitter (@SandersSays) check out his blog at http://sanderssays.typepad.com/.

About Tim Sanders:

Tim Sanders is more than a keynote speaker; his real world experience, research savvy and deep understanding of the human condition make him an indispensable consultant to some of the biggest brands in the world. His Los Angeles based company, Deeper Media, conducts research on business trends, new media and human behavior.

As a bestselling author, leadership coach, and former Yahoo! executive, Tim Sanders is one of today’s most prominent advocates for building business success through sharing your knowledge, network, and compassion with your business partners. His most recent book, Today We Are Rich – Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence, shows how Sanders learned The Lovecat Way.  His work is frequently featured in the media, most recently in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company.

This post originally appeared on Snelling Staff Services’ Hire Education Blog, an up-to-date hiring resource for employers and job seekers.

Your Clients and Candidates: Closer than You May Realize

It might seem strange to those in the staffing industry to directly compare their candidates to their clients, as many staffing firms view the recruiting and business development functions areas as two distinct entities that don’t impact one another.  Your candidates, however, are much more linked to your clients than you may realize. They are even, in many situations, one and the same: New research released in CareerBuilder and Inavero’s 2010 Opportunities in Staffing Guide reveals that 46 percent of staffing firm clients have also worked with a staffing firm as a job candidate.

If you have worked in the staffing industry for a long time, you’ve probably had the following experience: You have a great candidate (we’ll call him Joe), who is an IT professional focusing on Java. A few years ago, you placed Joe in a contract position with your client. You’ve kept in contact with Joe periodically over the years as he has accepted different positions across the country (like you do with all your great candidates).

One day, Joe e-mails you and says he’s now in the position to hire people himself and is looking for IT staffing help. I hear this story all the time, especially within the IT sector. It’s no surprise that 54 percent of IT clients surveyed in CareerBuilder and Inavero’s study said they once worked with a staffing firm as a job candidate.

What is the key factor in creating an environment that makes clients and candidates want to keep coming back to you? My suggestion is to first focus on delivering an exceptional candidate experience.  If you get this right, the referrals — from both candidates and clients — will come.

The Top Five Drivers for Job Seeker Loyalty and Referrals

The 2010 Opportunities in Staffing Guide identified the top five drivers for job seeker loyalty and referrals. Excel in the following areas and you will be well on your way to creating a unique experience for your candidates that will keep your company and personal brand top of mind:

1.Deliver great service. As you can see by the chart to the left, service was the number one driver for satisfaction with job candidates when working with a staffing firm. What processes do you have in place to ensure that you are providing the best experience and differentiating your firm from your competitors? How quickly does it take you to get back to people when they contact you? What “surprises” do you build into the process to go above and beyond? Think about ways you can make working with you more memorable.

2. Connect people with the best-fit jobs. There is a misconception that job seekers are not satisfied with staffing firms unless they receive a job.  Although attaining a position does drive satisfaction, it is not necessarily the first thing job seekers care about. Stay focused on the interactions candidates have with your staffing firm along the way to that placement. Candidates may very well alter their opinion of you (for better or for worse) as you work to make connections between them and your clients.

3. Be professional at all times. Not many people would argue the point that staffing professionals have a tough job. The stress of the position and volume of communication you receive can sometimes test your patience. Remaining professional at all times, however, is essential to creating a long-term referral network. You might speak to 25 people a day about their job search, but the job seeker on the other end may have only have spoken to you. Make that call memorable — in a good way.

4. Always be responsive in communication. There aren’t many things worse than never hearing back from someone. When someone is in a job search or unemployed, the stress of unresponsive communication is compounded. Job seekers are looking for progress, or at least a realistic view of their chances. Focus on setting proper expectations with your candidates and just say no when you cannot place them.  Hearing “no” is better than silence.

5. Promote your strong reputation. A strong reputation is based on the compiled experiences and interactions a person has had with you or your firm.  Technology makes it easier than ever to share these experiences.  Encourage candidates to share their experience through your referral network, Facebook page, or within review sites — these testimonials will help spread the word about you and your business successes.

Your candidate and client experiences are definitively linked. With the progress of social media and real-time communication, it is easier than ever for people to share both their good and bad experiences.  Focus on providing the best experiences possible for the job seekers you serve. Not only will this create more opportunities for candidate referrals in the short-term, but it will also position you as the “go-to” person when it comes to staffing when that candidate becomes a client.

Access a complimentary copy of CareerBuilder and Inavero’s 2010 Opportunities in Staffing Guide here.

Eric Gilpin is president of CareerBuilder’s Staffing & Recruiting Group. He has more than 10 years of experience in the staffing industry, and is responsible for developing sales teams and strategies to help clients meet their goals and promote the staffing industry overall. With people development and industry awareness as priorities, Gilpin is focused on technology, social media, and product design as key growth drivers for the staffing and recruiting industry.