I have always obtained feedback, to some extent, from customers on their experience of my performance, the recruitment process they have encountered, along with the level of customer service received. In previous roles this was usually a fairly informal task and generally feedback was never obtained in an organised manner. Comments were then distributed throughout the team in a fairly casual and unstructured fashion. In my role with Head Resourcing this is a different story, as you may know, we like to do things differently.
Feedback is crucial to us, from all customers, and my role is pivotal in gathering this information from our contractor population. There are a couple of ways I go about this:
Surveys
Surveys are a fantastic way to gather feedback as they can be completed in an anonymous fashion. Contractors are asked to rate their experience on the recruitment process, pre-employment vetting, timesheet and payment process, along with overall customer care.
Response rates are key, not everyone has the time or desire to provide feedback, and therefore it is crucial that questions remain simple and small in quantity. We keep the questions short, clear and to the point which means we are lucky to have a high response rate – double the national average! Respondents are invited to leave comments to back up their scores, but generally this is a fantastic quantitative method for measuring satisfaction.
Face to face meetings
Face to face meetings mean relationship building, which in turn means building an element of trust. Once I have this, I find people are willing to have an open and honest conversation about their experience, not just with Head Resourcing – but with other recruitment agencies that they have worked with. It’s a great opportunity to not only get an indication of the levels of satisfaction, but a qualitative discussion around what can be done differently – gathering ideas on how to improve is essential, as we wish to provide the best level of service as possible.
Consultative feedback
On occasions we may look into changing a process or system. I will ask a number of contractors for their opinion or insight into these changes, how they think the change will benefit them once rolled out, along with any potential challenges they might expect to incur. This gives us a great insight into how well received this change may be and if it will be worthwhile. I think our contractors appreciate this and I believe it shows we care.
What happens next?
It’s all very well to ask people for their opinion but process improvement is the name of the game. Any slight improvement we can implement to make the candidate’s journey better I will grasp with both hands. This means interfacing internally with different teams and sharing feedback obtained from our contractor population. Changes can then be made to ensure we are providing an exceptional level of service and streamlining processes, in line with suggestions.
This will be an on-going vital piece of work, as there is always room for improvement. The way we gather feedback will probably evolve over time too and I look forward to hearing how we can improve further in 2017 and implement some exciting changes to assist our customer experience.
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