The time has finally come. You’ve decided to add a chatbot to your website. 

Chatbots have been used successfully in other industries for years, but it’s a newer concept to staffing, so I wanted to create a quick cheat sheet for those companies thinking about adding bots to their tech stack. 

Here are some important questions to think about. 

Does your chatbot provider understand staffing? 

There are thousands of chatbot companies out there, but many of them try to cross multiple industries and don’t have a tailored offering. 

Anyone in staffing who has sat through a technology pitch knows the sinking feeling when the logo slide comes up and all you see are companies like Nike, Coca-cola, American Airlines, but no staffing companies anywhere in the mix. 

Make sure to ask if they have any staffing customers, or at the very least, someone on the sales or product team who understands the nuances of a staffing workflow.  

Does the chatbot integrate with my ATS?

If not, RUN!

It might be an awesome product if you’re using cutting edge marketing technology like Marketo or Pardot, but if there’s not a direct connection to your main source of truth like Bullhorn, then that data will sit in a siloed environment. 

This will put a bottleneck in your digital transformation plans and make company buy-in much more difficult. In Lauren Jones’ words, “There is no transformation without integration.”

Some bot companies use services like zapier to help connect to different systems, and this can be a great short-term solution, but unless that integration is approved by your ATS provider, it’s not going to be a good long-term option. 

Free sounds awesome! What’s the catch?

Free is awesome, but when was the last time you used a free product for longer than a few weeks before realizing you need to upgrade to get what you actually want out of the product? 

If you’re a tech-forward SMB staffing firm with a smaller budget, use this advice from Lauren Jones, Founder of Leap Consulting Solutions to find the right partner- “It doesn’t have to be super expensive. 

There’s a really great way for young, smaller agencies to achieve this, and that’s to get engaged with a startup that is looking to grow its business. 

A scrappy young firm, working with a scrappy young technology company can have great results.”

Will my recruiters have to add ANOTHER UI to their daily workflow?

This is a generalization, but recruiters and sales folks are creatures of habit (I know this from experience), so making them change their routine will most likely lead to lower adoption rates. 

Think about where recruiters and account managers are spending most of their time throughout the day, and ask yourself if adding another application for them to log into makes sense. 

In some cases it could make sense, but ask the bot company if there’s a way to integrate it with systems that they already use on a daily basis like their ATS or collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Google Chat. 

Can I brand and name my bot?

Staffing is an extremely competitive industry, so brand recognition should be a key focus for staffing firms when adding external facing technology to their stack. 

Check out this video for a great example of how Lead Healthstaff turned their bot into an extension of their brand. 

This is also an important question if you’re evaluating other external facing pieces of technology, such as a mobile app. Companies like WorkN realized this early on, and allow you to name and brand your own app to ensure your candidates or workers can connect with your brand through their technology. 

If you’re forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade to a package that offers this, then it shows that they’re more focused on promoting their own brand name than helping you promote yours.

P.S. We’re here to help!

Hey, I’m EngineBot! I can help connect you with a Staffing Engine team member if you have any questions. ?

I can also help you learn more about Staffing Engine and schedule a demo.