Congratulations! Your strategy for generating driver leads is a success. You’re putting your budget in the right places and getting the attention of the right drivers. How wonderful would life be if the process ended there? But it doesn’t. You may be generating a lot of leads but how many of those are turning into hires? According to the trucks sitting idle on your lot, apparently not enough.
Unfortunately, as recruiters, you can’t prevent everything that gets in the way of a lead becoming a hire. A driver may not be satisfied with the amount of pay or home time your business offers and making a change in either of those areas may not be within your control. What you can control is the effort you put into contacting leads.
It may seem like you’re doing all you can to contact the leads you generate but your efforts are not producing desired results. Why is that?
Let’s take a look at a few reasons why you’re losing leads before they can become hires and what you can do to turn it around.
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Your leads are cold.
Research shows that the odds of calling and getting through to a lead decreases 10 times within the hour after the generation of that lead. The greatest drop within that hour is at the 5-minute mark. In other words, your leads turn cold after 5 minutes. With contact rate dropping by 900% between 5 minutes and 10 minutes, your leads turn very cold after 5 minutes. That’s a very short window of opportunity.
So the answer’s simple. Just call every lead within 5 minutes, right? But we all know it’s not that simple. You may not have enough recruiters to keep up and may not have the budget to hire more. Even if you did, there aren’t enough work hours in a day to contact every lead within the hour, not to mention within 5 minutes.
You may not be able to get on the phone with a lead within 5 minutes, but thankfully, technology offers ways to keep the conversation going until that phone call happens. You can use autoresponders like SMS messaging, emails, and voicemail to acknowledge the interest a driver has shown or to let a driver know their application was received. Also, to let them know you will get back to them. This provides some sense of moving forward in the application process for a driver.
You can also use a 3rd party recruiter to supplement your recruiting team. For example, Randall-Reilly’s Smart Rhino Labs. Smart Rhino’s system automatically sends a text to a driver who has completed an application letting that driver know they’re about to receive a call. The call that follows is automated and if it’s able to connect to the driver, the driver is connected to one of your recruiters or one of Smart Rhino’s live agents if your recruiters are not available.
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Drivers are losing interest in your application.
For those of you with shorter applications, you may not have a problem here. But for those with extensive applications where the length of the application cannot be avoided, it’s important to start the driver off with a prior interaction or introduction of some kind that will encourage them to complete your application.
This takes us back to the necessity of engaging quickly with a driver. You can use that first interaction to let a driver know what to expect and that can include a short overview of the info the application ask for. That way, the length doesn’t come as a surprise to the driver.
It’s also important to ask yourself if you would be willing to complete your own application if you were in a driver’s shoes? Or would you lose interest halfway? Whether your answer is yes or no, it is always important to keep your application as concise as possible. Ask for no more than what’s need.
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You’re not getting driver feedback.
Doing your own research on driver behavior and learning about your specific driver audience is a strong starting point to build your recruiting strategy on. The problem is your research may not show what’s stopping drivers from becoming a part of your company. Who better to get that revelation from than the drivers themselves?
Whether or not a driver becomes a part of your company is heavily influenced by their perception of you. So learn how your own drivers see you, the drivers who are up close. You can do surveys for drivers who’ve been with the company for a certain amount of time and exit surveys for those on their way out. Knowing how drivers see your company gives you insight into how you can improve the perception of your business.
This is where branding comes in. We all know that your advertising tells people a lot about who you are. A way to tell your story and draw drivers is to allow drivers to hear from other drivers. Feature real drivers who work at your company in your advertising. Provide driver testimonials. Seeing advertising centered around someone who may end up being a coworker makes a stronger impression on a potential hire.
There are a number of reasons your driver leads are not turning into hires and most of those reasons you can do nothing about. What you can do is optimize your interactions with these leads by engaging with them quickly, making sure they don’t lose interest, and getting feedback from drivers themselves. By tightening up your recruiting with these three strategies, you can cut down on lost leads and fill more empty trucks.
