This year’s CommBank Young Hero Awards shines the spotlight on 10 outstanding business leaders from across Australia. These young entrepreneurs, aged 35 and under, are making a positive impact on Australia’s business market while pushing the boundaries of their respective industries. Let’s take a closer look at these trailblazing businesses and the remarkable founders that run them. Michael Phillips, Co-Founder & Director of KeyMoves shares insights into their business’s success and why they were awarded CommBank Young Hero Awards 2023: Excellence in Customer Service.
What motivated you to start your business?
We started KeyMoves in 2019 with the view of changing how recruitment agencies are viewed. Having worked in other national agencies in the past, where decisions were made interstate and with only profit in mind, we weren’t allowed to adopt a ’customer-focused’ approach. KPIs and targets had to be met first and foremost. This drives certain behaviours and is obvious to customers, and feedback from key contacts within the industry made it obvious there was a gap in the industry for a specialist agency that operates with integrity and puts customers first.
Most challenging aspects of providing excellent customer service?
I’ll be the first to admit that recruitment agencies don’t have the best reputation for providing good customer service, and changing people’s perceptions of using an agency can be a real challenge. We try to overcome this by avoiding these stereotypical behaviours – not being pushy or salesy, forcing people to take interviews or offers when they aren’t comfortable, and not compromising our values and beliefs for a quick fee. Sometimes this does mean walking away from a placement fee or recruitment process because we are not comfortable with the behaviour of either the client or candidate. In the long run, we hope that our customers appreciate that we value operating with integrity and prioritising their needs.
Most important elements of customer service?
Clear communication and responsiveness are two key elements to excellent customer service, and these are two areas that so many agencies really struggle with. We ensure the whole team are quick to respond to all customers, ensuring we provide feedback or updates in a personalised, timely and professional manner, to remain consistent with our customer-first approach and build strong levels of customer satisfaction.
Without sounding cheesy, we also feel that we ‘go the extra mile’ for our customers to ensure they have a positive experience with KeyMoves. This can involve early-morning coffee catch-ups or late-night phone calls. We take the time to get to know our customers and truly understand their needs, and offer a personalised approach that fosters trust and caters for each customer’s specific needs.
Finally, having a depth of knowledge in our specific market, in our case accounting, allows us to address industry-specific customer queries, provide accurate information and offer realistic solutions. We provide the team with continuous training and development on industry updates to ensure we can provide customers with real value and useful insights, which they might not get from larger generalist recruitment agencies.
How have you incorporated customer feedback into the customer service process?
Providing a high level of customer service involves listening to your customers, actively asking for feedback, being flexible in your approach, and implementing internal processes that drive customer satisfaction. We partnered with an online review platform called Sourcr, which gathers customer feedback within the recruitment market, to gain instant feedback from both employers and candidates. This allowed us to see what we did well, what customers value the most, and areas for improvement throughout the recruitment process. There are many online platforms across all markets, for example Google reviews, that would be relevant to any entrepreneurs looking to improve their customer experience process.
By Alyssa Herr, Editor
