Back in H2 of 2019, our working lives at Voyager were already changing. Behind the scenes, we had been hard at work for months to move the global HQ to Basingstoke and to bring together several of the recruiting industry’s best-known suppliers – FileFinder, Voyager, ISV.Online and GatedTalent under one new brand – Ikiru People.
We invested heavily in technology to enable seamless collaboration between previously separate teams and offices around the world and to enable 50% of our staff to work remotely for the first time. By implementing 3CX softphones and consolidating our data in Microsoft Dynamics, we ensured all members of our global team could talk to clients and have direct access to the latest information from anywhere in the world. By using Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting and remote assistance technology, everyone was able to attend internal and client meetings, no matter where they were based.
Little did we know that at the exact same time, a mysterious virus mentioned in the news on the other side of the world would soon unleash a global health crisis the like of which had not been seen in living memory. And little did we know that all our preparations would put us in a position to adapt to this crisis swiftly; helping and supporting thousands of recruiters (temp, perm, executive search, in-house) at a time where they would need our help the most.
By the time Covid-19 blew up in the news in early 2020, the new infrastructure was already in place.
Here are the 10 extra steps we’ve since taken to deliver great customer support during these unprecedented times.
1) As Covid-19 started to spread around the world, we took steps to safeguard our staff and customers.
2) We set up immediate hygiene and social distancing measures in our offices, according to government guidelines.
3) We swiftly implemented a remote working policy for all staff.
4) We knew our customers would need us more than ever (customer support, service, projects etc…), so we ensured that we maintained all customer-facing service levels.
5) We managed expectations with customers and staff with frequent email communications.
6) We held – and continue to hold – regular staff briefings to keep everybody abreast of the latest developments.
7) We monitored staff performance as remote working became the new norm.
8) We introduced a support package for struggling customers.
9) We designed a new set of training courses for our clients’ furloughed staff to keep their Infinity recruitment software skills up to date, and to build up more skills for when they return, with deferred payment and discounted rates.
10) We increased our account management capacity to deal with licence swaps, reductions and increased levels of admin.
We are proud of the steps we have taken, the proactive nature of our staff and attitudes in general. It’s far from over – but during testing times like these, it’s clear to see we have a team to be proud of – below I’m sharing some statistics that continue to show we’re going above and beyond to help customers.
