Customer Service the Secret to Success

Without sales you have no business.

In recruitment your sales come from your clients not your candidates.

Look after your customers, they are you businesses life blood.

Chasing around after new clients can be fools gold if you take your eye off the ball of customer service.

Think deeper not wider when it comes to business development before chasing off after new clients.

Call your clients regularly but not intrusively which is a delicate balance to strike. May be send them the odd industry related press release. If you get a candidate you think is a good fit just mention it in passing, show you are aware and interested.

If a client wants something then pull out all the stops don’t be bound by industry conventions and time frames. Treat the client as you would wish to be treated your self – with respect. If they want a solution they want it now.

Speaking about this subject at a recent meeting Chris Slay who runs a number of recruitment companies made the following 3 points

1. If you don’t give the client the chance to be dissatisfied, they won’t look elsewhere.

2. If you give excellent service you are more likely to receive a personal referral which is more powerful than any other introduction.

3. If you set the highest standards of customer service less things are likely to go wrong and as such your business is more likely to prosper.

As an illustration Chris quoted an example from Skills Provision a specialist Eastern European recruitment agency. “At 4.40pm on Friday we were contacted by a client who had to let a person go on medical grounds saying they needed a replacement for 7.30am Monday morning. We did it MD to MD by email/phone and as I was at the airport collecting others picked up the guy on Sunday ready to start work on Monday, incidentally my counterpart in Poland was moving house that day, but business is business.”

Service like this will bring its own rewards.