The Consultant's Story

The challenge

I’d only been working for Response for three months and it was my weekend to be on-call when one of our clients, a large bakery, telephoned at 9.00pm on Friday evening!

The bakery had received a rush order from a supermarket and urgently needed more staff to be able to fulfil it. Normally they used Response to supply staff during the day, with one of our competitors supplying the night staff. On this occasion the second agency had said that it was too late to help!

The client was under pressure. They operated within a very competitive market and didn’t want to turn down a rush order because this could result in the supermarket turning to a different supplier in the future.

The approach

Although I was just about to go out with my friends, I knew I had to take control of the situation quickly. I needed the client to feel confident that I could find him the staff, so we agreed that I’d call him back in 20 minutes with a progress report. As soon as I got off the phone I started ringing around the day’s list of available temps.

When you’re on call you’re trained to work from wherever you are, whatever the time. You’re productive immediately. Within 10 minutes I’d found four temps and had arranged for them to go to the office straightaway and wait for me there. Then I called the Branch Manager, explained the problem and that I’d exhausted my day’s list, it was Friday night after all!

As a team we are passionate about delivering optimum customer service, so I decided to go to the office to undertake a more extensive search. My Manager said he would meet me there too, so he could give me a bit more help. He also said he’d draft in another member of the team.

Once I got to the office I began to ring around looking for other available staff. Luckily, I sourced another two temps quite quickly and got my Manager to pick them up en route to the office. Six down, six to go!

The Manager got to the office accompanied by the two temps. He was followed soon afterwards by another Response Consultant. We decided that whilst I took the temps to the client, the others would continue to ring around.

As I was leaving for the bakery, my Manager and the other Consultant were back on the phones and had already found the final six. Fortunately, as some of them had worked at the bakery before, they set off for work immediately. The rest were picked up and driven there.

Just after 10pm all twelve temps were at the bakery, in the correct department, briefed and ready to work.

The client was happy, not only did he have enough temporary staff, he could complete the order on time. Me, I was happy too, we now supply the bakery with staff for both shifts!

The benefit

I realised that at Response we don’t pay lip service to customer service.
We recognise that to do the best for our clients you really have to have a care and passion to deliver the optimum solution. People aren’t a commodity, each case is different and often you have to go the extra mile.

Response Recruitment is passionate about delivering optimum service to customers. We have a care and passion to achieve what can appear unachievable and a team that is committed and dedicated to getting the best job done.