Managing the customer experience can be a tricky proposition. With the rise of the omni-channel customer, capable of interacting with your brand on an ever-increasing number of platforms, the CX waters are murkier than ever. Couple this with the financial effects that many companies have felt through the pandemic, often leading to shrunken budgets and teams, and you have a recipe for a customer experience nightmare as businesses try to keep up.

Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in the staffing industry. Staffing firms must create a seamless experience for both clients and job candidates while often working with a small team, stretched thin by business development and recruiting efforts. The two target audiences of a staffing firm have completely different sets of needs, making the challenge of managing their individual experiences even more difficult.

But, fret not; technology is here to save the day. You can use tech to understand your current customer experience and use that knowledge and basic tools to enhance it. Here’s how:

Step 1: Know What You’re Dealing With

To improve, you have to know where you stand. When it comes to customer experience, this is learned through analytics.

Using Google Analytics, you can learn how your audiences interact with your website. This information is valuable as you determine what types of content you should produce, what messaging works on your site, and more. By studying KPIs such as traffic source and site engagement, you can determine which pieces of content, ads, or referring websites drive the most engaged traffic, giving you a greater understanding of how you can meet the needs of your audience.

You can also use social media analytics to determine how engaged followers are with your staffing firm. For Facebook in particular, monitoring KPIs such as page actions and post engagement can give you an idea of how your audiences are interacting with your content, helping you refine future strategies.

Step 2: Take Care of the Easy Stuff

Once you know where you stand, take action by using what you’ve learned to improve. Aim for consistency in messaging and aesthetics, while also maintaining as many convenient channels of communication as possible. Clients and job seekers alike often want a more personalized experience that comes only from one-on-one communication, which means regular monitoring of all website forms and social communications. Also, use what you learned from your social analytics to determine what types of content are the most engaging to your audiences and refine your content strategy and calendar accordingly. The goal is a great experience, and appealing content can provide just that.

Another simple thing you can do is ensure that your site is responsive, so that the mobile experience is just as engaging as the desktop. It’s no secret that we all spend a significant amount of time on our phones, so it’s critical that the most basic of your technologies—your website—provide an outstanding experience.

Step 3: Automate

Clear and regular communication with clients and candidates is the backbone of the overall customer experience for staffing firms. It can also be the most challenging, as time-strapped staffing pros juggle multiple responsibilities.

Utilizing sales engagement platforms to manage client details and automate client and candidate facing messaging can solve both of these problems. SEPs allow you to utilize a traditional CRM for client communications, and a host of social scheduling tools, giving you the ability to schedule your content in advance and manage campaigns from one platform, saving time and ensuring a consistent experience.

Step 4: Let People Take Care of Themselves

Although staffing clients and candidates appreciate a human touch, they often just want to take care of simple things, such as browsing for a job, entering time, and accessing paycheck stubs, on their own. This makes technologies like self-service functionalities within your staffing software and website chatbots game changers when it comes to a great experience.

Bots can be of particular use to job seekers, as they guide the candidate through a series of questions designed to determine their experience and match them to the jobs that are right for them. There are a host of companies providing chatbot technology for websites, and research shows that their impact will only grow in the future, with 85% of customer interactions projected to be handled without humans by next year.

Similarly, a robust staffing firm management software with self-service features can help enhance customer experience. Features such as online time entry and approval, job order placement, and access to check history and W2s are key to providing excellent service.

With new technologies rapidly emerging, customer demand for an exceptional experience will no doubt continue to rise. Ensuring that your staffing firm is in a good position now by taking the steps above will help set you up for success no matter how the landscape change