Do you remember when customer loyalty was the norm?
Unless you’re somewhere in the vicinity of my age, there’s a fair chance you don’t.
In today’s competitive market it seems quaint to think there was a time when getting a customer at a young age could virtually guarantee their continued patronage for decades.
These days we switch energy suppliers when we can save £5 a month. We switch banks to get £100 of M&S vouchers. We compare prices on hotels, flights and car hire. And, perhaps most unexpected, we flit between different supermarket chains.
Who would have thought, even ten years ago, that the majority of consumers would stop buying all of their groceries at one superstore in a big weekly shop and, instead, top up at different stores depending on what they need. Fruit from Lidl for the quality, Aldi for their good range of beers, Asda for the basics and B&M for cheap chocolate and energy drinks.
Recruitment is no exception. And is perhaps an even more striking example.
Transactional recruitment has, for the longest time, only generated repeat business if you could find the best candidate the quickest, two campaigns in a row.
No easy task.
But with the rise of retained recruitment and managed service provider contracts, is a change in the works?
Is it possible for recruiters to engender loyalty in their clients?
Could it even be possible for recruiters to position themselves as a desirable brand?
I believe it is. And, if you’re keeping up with the latest advances in recruitment strategy, this is going to be easier than you think…
Beware of Presumptive Loyalty
Before I dig into this subject, we need a quick word on the dangers of presuming loyalty exists between you and your clients.
It’s easy to convince yourself that, because a firm has used your recruitment services for years that loyalty will keep them on your books. But sometimes what looks like loyalty is simply a reluctance to go to the trouble of finding something new.
I’ve asked this question before, but if another recruitment firm came along and offered all of your clients much the same service but at a cheaper price, how many would stay?
Even today, there are many people paying, for instance, energy bills that are way overpriced because they can’t find the time or the energy to make the switch, despite it being easier than ever. But if cash flow suddenly becomes an issue, the appearance of loyalty can quickly dissolve.
Your clients are no different. If they embark on a cost-cutting exercise you may find yourself facing the choice between slashing your prices or losing a valued client.
The other type of loyalty that can prove worryingly flimsy is the kind based on your good working relationship with a specific employee. Maybe you have a great rapport with the HR director and you know that he or she would never use a different recruitment firm.
The danger is when you conflate your cosy relationship with one person to being representative of the firm as a whole. If the HR director leaves the firm for any reason, you can suddenly find yourself dealing with someone who doesn’t know you and has no understanding of why they’re paying more than the industry average.
Real loyalty. The kind of loyalty that keeps clients on your side, through thick and thin, costs be damned, has to stem from something deeper than just familiarity or complacency.
Today’s Loyal Consumer
Brand loyalty still exists today, it’s just tricky to engineer from scratch. Most of the firms that are killing it from a brand point of view have already been at the top of their game for years.
But understanding what keeps them there is very instructive.
Let’s start with the obvious one…
Amazon
Millions and millions of loyal customers around the world. It’s reached the point where most of us would find it simpler just to have our monthly wages directly wired into Bezos’ bank account.
But is this because people like and admire Amazon?
Doubtful.
If another company came along offering an identical service, with the same prices (not even cheaper), and had a great track record of treating their employees well, would people stick with Amazon because they love the brand and everything it stands for?
I don’t think so.
Amazon loyalty is based on total market domination. Nice work if you can get it, but probably not a realistic target for a recruiter.
Virgin
While some people find Richard Branson irritating, far more admire his adventurous spirit, his “can do” attitude and his willingness to tackle new markets and disrupt monopolies.
The Virgin brand still carries a sense of innovation and cheeky bonhomie that allows them to jump into new industries and snap up market share.
But they’re not bullet-proof.
Bad press over their handling of Virgin Trains and internet problems for Virgin Media customers (although to be fair, internet outages are an issue for virtually every supplier) has, arguably, tarnished their brand.
This illustrates the importance of marrying a strong brand with a good quality service. No brand, however strong, can get away with delivering poor results for too long.
Nike
High quality shoes and clothing. A cool logo. And a brand that is synonymous with male and female athletes, of all nationalities and backgrounds, giving their all to achieve their dreams.
But what sets the strong Nike brand apart is their commitment to their ethos and their philosophy.
Their adverts rarely, if ever, talk about the quality of their merchandise or how great they look. Instead their marketing is all about making their customers feel inspired and empowered.
And their faithfulness to this line is absolute.
Nike didn’t sponsor Colin Kaepernick because they were unaware that it would create controversy. They made this move because it harmonised perfectly with their brand and they banked on the fact that this fidelity of thought would win them more customer loyalty than it would lose.
For Nike fans, this was a brave stand that only cemented their place as one of the most popular and respected brands in the world.
A Respectable Brand AND Results
Assuming you’re not planning to take the Amazon route and just buy up the entire recruitment industry, inspiring loyalty in your clients towards your brand is going to take two things.
1) The innovation and quality that people (mostly) associate with Virgin.
2) The idealistic commitment that people associate with Nike.
The first of these is the easiest to achieve. Adopting modern recruitment tools, such as video technology, candidate presentation platforms and behavioural assessments keeps you on the forefront of innovation. And proper utilisation of this kit to produce measurably better results will deliver the quality that sets you apart.
i-intro®-trained recruiters regularly eat their competitors’ lunch because, while the old guard is yammering on about how long they’ve been in business and how quickly they can pluck candidates out of their database, the new wave of tech-savvy recruiters is boasting almost perfect retention rates and lengthy free replacement policies to match.
It beggars belief that there are still transactional recruiters out there, boasting about how they can extract high fees from their clients for just a few hours work compiling a shortlist. But how loyal do you think their clients will be when they see what the innovative recruiters out there have to offer?
The second part of this strategy is all about the attitude that your brand suggests. This is a little trickier because it requires your team to communicate and work in a way that is unified and unrelentingly principled.
Things like…
And how about that simple, yet powerful, policy of being willing to own up to mistakes, apologise and fix the problem?
Think about the times that a company has let you down, only to delight you with a compassionate, personalised and sympathetic resolution. These often become the companies that earn your loyalty despite their mistakes and who you end up talking about to your friends and family.
No one’s expecting your recruitment firm to be the next Virgin or Nike. But if you can marry innovation and quality, with the development of a caring, honest and compassionate brand, you can develop loyalty that goes way beyond mere familiarity.
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i-intro® provides training, software and resources specifically tailored to help recruiters add value to their services and develop their brand.