An increased interest in staffing means staffing firms will need to find the right strategy to attract new customers. One of the things I kept hearing from smaller companies is their concern about how they were perceived in the marketplace. They wanted to be viewed as having the ability to compete with larger companies, which meant not only having the financial ability to handle larger payrolls but complying with ACA rules, customized reporting, web capabilities and having enough candidates to fill orders.
The topic of perception as it relates to consumers (end-users of staffing) reminded me of the time I used to work in my uncle’s small meat market. We had a produce department. And in that department one of the analogies that we used to use for displaying the product was: “It’s like painting a picture”. You use the different colors of the fruits and vegetables to paint the picture, to make the produce selection look as complete and as appetizing as possible. I don’t want to suggest that the quality of the product was subpar, but a good display gives customers confidence that competent people run the store. There are lots of studies that show that consumers will buy when the product is properly displayed and they have confidence in the product or service.
First impressions matter. Did you know that the average attention span of a human being is around 8 seconds? According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, we have social media and its catchy stimuli to thank for this. Websites like Pinterest, and Buzzfeed keep us constantly scrolling through attention-grabbing pictures. As a society now driven by images, we spend less time reading and more time looking. Can smaller staffing companies adapt?
In today’s internet age, a website, Facebook or LinkedIn page is a staffing company’s first impression to the marketplace. If they create a clean and inviting web page with a relevant image, it’s bound to attract eyeballs. Say, for example, you are looking to make a purchase on the internet, and the website looks sketchy and not well-coded. You move on right away. How can customers believe you can handle a large or difficult order if your virtual storefront is a mess?
Your web page needs to be interactive. For example, many staffing companies have web pages that allow employees to access or change their personal information. Others give their customers the ability to go online and view open invoices, create job orders and approve their contract staff time sheets etc. Talk about a great first and lasting impression.
It also has to be mobile-friendly, because a lot of times, people searching on their phones. We at Damian receive a lot of inquiries directly from our webpage, because the browser allows the user to directly click on our phone number to call us. It saves a potential customer time going to their dial screen. Saving those precious seconds deflects the natural instinct to hesitate in making big decisions. Look at Amazon’s one-click purchase button. How many times does a customer decide to cancel their order while putting in their credit card information and shipping address?
Removing those obstacles makes doing business much simpler. And we’re seeing great results.
Article by Nick Andriacchi as seen on The Staffing Stream
