Upon purchasing locum tenens agency Mint Physician Staffing in October of 2008, as banks were failing and the economy was nosediving, Stuart McKelvey knew he was facing a significant challenge. Happily, he was up to the task, using a combination of innovation and sound business practices to create a flourishing business. 10 years later, Mint has built an outstanding reputation for consistently providing the finest medical talent for their clients.

The Challenge

Customer engagement was left in the hands of the individual account managers. As a result, it lacked a uniform approach and would often be ignored entirely.

Staffing is the very definition of a people business. Success is dependent on the strength of your relationships, whether they be with clients or candidates. But maintaining these relationships can be hard work—in order to stay front of mind, recruiters need to consistently communicate with clients and candidates, even when there’s seemingly no reason to do so. And it was in this regard that McKelvey saw Mint to be lacking. “Engagement was decentralized. It was up to each account manager to call, email, or text their customers on the B2B side as they saw fit. It was up to them to create the content and deliver it. It was about as basic as you can get.”

The result was a lack of accountability. While the intent was noble, the customer engagement and the time-consuming content creation it required would inevitably be pushed to the bottom of the account manager’s to-do list. As a result, new opportunities with customers and potential customers did not always realize their full potential.

It has made our account managers look much more professional, with improved follow up and greater brand awareness for Mint. The frequency and control of communication has increased significantly, which we think will benefit our brand over the long run, in addition to the leads that we have received directly from email responses.
Stuart Mckelvey Mint Physicians

The Solution

Mint put a firm focus on business development, and Herefish provided the functionality the company required.

McKelvey knew that he had to change Mint’s decentralized approach to customer engagement. So he and Mint’s executives along with the sales and marketing teams strategized their outreach and content plan along with implementing Herefish by Bullhorn.

Herefish by Bullhorn automated much of the time-consuming or error-prone work that a complete approach to customer engagement requires. It also helped to centralize engagement. No longer were account managers working separately from one another—everyone went through Herefish, which brought uniformity to the approach. With a dedicated system and dedicated marketers pushing things forward, clients began to receive compelling emails at regular intervals.

The results were immediate. Leads from engagement emails began rolling in within 30 days, and as the campaign has developed, every account manager has converted at least two or three old prospects into new customers.

 

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McKelvey is glowing in his praise. “It has made our account managers look much more professional, with improved follow up and greater brand awareness for Mint. The frequency and control of communication have increased significantly, which we think will benefit our brand over the long run, in addition to the leads that we have received directly from email responses.”

The Future

The initial success of Herefish has inspired Mint to investigate other ways that they can utilize the tool.

While Mint is currently using Herefish for business development, McKelvey understands that this is just the tip of the iceberg. “It’s a very comprehensive marketing communications and automation tool that we’ve yet to take full advantage of,” he admits. What does the future hold? McKelvey sees Herefish helping Mint to re-engage with old candidates just as it has helped the company re-engage with customers.

Process automation is another area of interest, as it eliminates the possibility of human error. In the past, for example, candidates haven’t had their status updated, and have received emails about open roles while they’re on an assignment, or about a long-gone assignment when they’re back looking for work. “At the end of an assignment, Herefish can automatically change the candidate’s status from ‘placed’ to ‘active but not working,’” notes McKelvey, thus eliminating the issue of erroneous emails.

Recruiting, perhaps more than any other industry, is a people business, and over the course of a decade, Stuart McKelvey has demonstrated a deep understanding of that fact. But he also recognizes that people have their limitations, and leveraging a smart tool can not only avoid the mistakes humans naturally make, but help us to do our jobs better. That’s exactly what Mint has seen Herefish do—enhance the way that the physician staffing firm does business.

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