Why Staffing Firms Are Having Trouble with Chatbots and More in The 2022 Staffing Technology Report

Jay CutlerAI, Live Chat, Recruiting Acceleration, Staffing and Recruiting

Candidate.ly and Talent Tech Labs recently released their 2022 Staffing Technology Report, and it is a must-read if you’re in the industry. They surveyed 100+ staffing operators & leaders about their processes, challenges, and effectiveness, all to answer one question: What does it take to become a modern staffing firm?

It’s a very comprehensive report, but one thing that stuck out to us (we might be a bit biased) was the chatbot section. It found that firms were mostly DISSATISFIED with the chatbots they deployed. 

One of the main reasons listed is that “Chatbots are not yet capable of replacing human interactions in any substantial capacity.”

While it’s true that bots aren’t capable of replicating many human interactions (yet), we believe the dissatisfaction is due to a few other reasons as well.

#1. Staffing firms don’t have conversational designers and developers

Many of the current bot companies out there are 100% self-service and put the burden on the buyer to build out bot conversations and knowledge models, the brain behind smarter bots

The typical small marketing or technology team at a staffing firm doesn’t have the bandwidth to learn how to design a high-converting conversational experience. 

Enterprise firms might have these resources, but a majority of the market will not have these folks on staff.

#2. Chatbot companies require employees to learn new systems, interact with yet another UI, and don’t have dedicated customer success teams

If the chatbot platform doesn’t fit into someone’s current daily routine or integrate with systems specific to their industry, it can be seen as a burden by employees who have to work with it. Especially if there’s no primary point of contact for support.

Our solution at Staffing Engine was to bring the conversations right into MS Teams, Zoom, Google Chat, or Slack which your team is already using every day. And, we also provide a dedicated support contact for every account.   

#3. There’s no live chat option or only a live chat option

Sophisticated bot platforms should have both offerings. We’ve all been in a situation where a bot just can’t understand what we’re asking. And when there’s not an option to speak with a human, it can be extremely frustrating.

On the flip side, when candidates or clients visit your website at 10 PM and there’s no bot to answer questions, that visitor has to give their information and wait until the next day or sometimes days for a human to see it. 

That doesn’t fly in the on-demand, 24/7/365 world we live in anymore.

At Staffing Engine, were on a mission to help staffing firms solve these challenges by working side by side with our customers to design their conversational AI experience. You can schedule a demo here to learn more.    

Explore all the highlights and download the full report now for a comprehensive overview of staffing technology.


Related: Read about Candidate.ly’s thoughts on chatbots.