6 Quick and Easy Tips for CRAs to Keep Clients “Sticky”

Employment screening is a take-away business. Since the Internet has made background screening for employment more affordable for almost every type of organization and job function, chances are your CRA sales team is calling on prospects that already have some sort of screening process. How do you convince them to switch to you—more importantly, how do you keep your current clients from shopping around? Offering loads of customizations is one way to make your clients ignore those sales calls from your competitors.

Here are six ways you can spoil your clients on your platform:

1. Offer them custom adverse action letters. Each client may have their own view of what should be included on the pre-adverse and adverse action letter. Offering them a sample letter is a great start, but they may come to you with multiple versions of their letters based on state of residence or job location. Offering your client base a way to include multiple letters can make them sticky.
2. Choose the right county criminal vendor for your clients. Not all data vendors are the same—they come with different turnaround times and prices. You may have a client with a very high volume in one geographical area, and speed is important to them. In this case, you may want to pay a little more for a vendor with quicker turnaround time. Controlling vendors based on client need can be beneficial to your business. Evaluate your volume by county and client and look at the pricing and TAT from your vendors to maximize your results and profit margins.
3. Remove unused fields. Sometimes less is more. If you have a client that only uses certain fields or only orders certain products, make sure you are not cluttering their user interface with unnecessary information. Of course, you want them to know you have those fields or products if they need them, but you should have a conversation about what they need now. Just because you offer medical sanctions searches, for example, doesn’t mean your non-healthcare clients need to see that you do. The benefit of a slick user interface that is simple and easy to navigate may outweigh the information overload from offering them too much.
4. Offer your clients monthly criminal monitoring. Employers are finding more value in monitoring their workforce than ever. Offering them monthly monitoring not only reduces their risk of negligent hiring liability but also strengthens your relationship with them—it’s a service not all CRAs offer. Make sure, however, that the monitoring product you offer has flexibility in renewal options in case your clients just want to monitor their workforce for the first year of employment or another limited time frame. The more options the better.
5. Customize the component order on your clients’ reports. It seems so simple, but it could make a big difference to your client. Let’s say you have a transportation client ordering a package of multiple services. Ask them which component is the most important. They may want to see Motor Vehicle Records at the top of every report.
6. Reduce order entry time. Human resource professionals and recruiters are busy people. Any time you can save your clients in the order entry area can make a huge difference in how they view your service. Two quick and easy solutions to reduce data entry time include sending a link to the applicant, having him/her complete the order entry process, and uploading a batch file to your platform. Having the applicant complete the data entry not only saves the HR department’s time but also reduces errors—who knows a candidate’s personal information better than the candidate? Batch ordering can also make entering multiple orders a breeze.

Paying attention to each client’s specific needs can lead to discussions on how your platform can be customized to work harder for them. Evaluate their ordering habits and volumes, look at how they are ordering today and where they order, and see if you can make the screening process easier for them. It’s the little details that make a big difference.