Do you associate the word automation with a time-intensive setup, a complex implementation, and expensive maintenance? Do you see it as a nice-to-have – one just a little too abstract to ever make it on your priority list? Do you justify mindlessly repeating tedious process steps with the conviction that you’re saving the world from the robot apocalypse?
Automation doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. It doesn’t need to overwhelm you. Nor should it necessitate plans to become the next Sarah Conner.
At Tenstreet, we build our software specifically to solve the problems carriers face. Expediting time to hire is arguably one of the more important goals on which a carrier should focus, as a redundant, lengthy process gives drivers more opportunities to drop out or get scooped up by competing carriers. Tenstreet baked in automation to help carriers avoid these pitfalls and get drivers faster.
Let’s walk through three free and easy ways our built-in automation can help:
- engage every applicant when and even before they apply, ensuring your valuable leads receive the attention they deserve
- place every applicant with the right recruiter quickly, while enacting a fair distribution among your team
- trigger a multi-step process off the first step, putting a series of events into motion to complete a process quickly, consistently, and accurately.
1. Automatically respond to new applicants
Lead applications are your company’s lifeline. With driver scarcity at an all-time high, you may have noticed you’ve had to pay more for lead and full applications to ensure you get the drivers you need to fulfill your freight contracts. Those leads come in sporadically, often when your recruiters are away from their desks or even asleep. If you’re still responding to them manually, it’s likely some of your leads see a delayed response, or worse, none at all. Our driver data shows us that a fast response time is critical, with the probability of moving a driver to hire decreasing with each passing minute.
Tenstreet offers a bevy of tools to ensure you stay on top of these leads. Our PulseBot can respond instantly to applicant questions and after-hours/weekend messages with preloaded policies or AI-generated responses. Similarly, our Job Policy Tool lets you document your policies and send auto-reply messages to applicants asking common questions about home time, pet policy, pay, rider policies, and more. Both tools ensure drivers get the answers they need when they’re actually interested in learning about your company, even if that’s after hours.
Next, think of Tenstreet’s auto-responder as your 24-hour robot receptionist who immediately responds to your leads with personalized messages that begin building driver relationships. Your custom response can share more information about dedicated runs, new-hire bonuses, and most importantly, provide a link guiding the driver to take the next step of completing a full IntelliApp.
2. Automatically route your applications
Immediately following up is just one step in creating a smooth, engaging ride for your applicants. Next, ask yourself how your applicants find their way to their assigned recruiter. Do you have a team of recruiters who take turns working applications from the pool? Are certain recruiters dedicated to a specific location, such as by state or zip code? Are others responsible solely for handing applications that come from specific referrals or sources? Is somebody responsible for manually placing applications with the correct recruiter or tracking whose turn it is on a team?
There’s an easier way. Save your recruiting team’s time and write out your routing rules. Tenstreet can automatically route every application to the proper recruiter, removing the tedium from your team and ensuring a fair, standardized process. It lets recruiters concentrate their energies on forming relationships with drivers, which is central to recruiting success. We can help you build complex routing rules to route applications by position, by location (e.g. by state, or by using a 3-digit zip code prefix – for those specific, dedicated areas that require drivers to live a certain distance from a terminal), by referrer code, or by source – which in turn gives you the added bonus of learning which advertising campaigns bring you the most applications and get you the most hires. Routing rules can also employ a round-robin solution to evenly distribute your lead and full applications amongst a team of recruiters.
3. Automatically run your processes
Now that your applications are all being automatically responded to and systematically routed, it’s time to add automation to your processes. With automated event processing, one action can trigger many steps, including one to ensure all previous process steps have been properly executed, and then running a series of next steps to keep things moving quickly.
For example, say you’re ready to move a driver to a ‘Ready for Orientation’ status. First create a status processing rule that validates a checklist to see if all necessary documents, tags, and other hiring requirements are in place. Once validated, the system will allow the status to be updated before moving on to the next steps, in which it might send the driver orientation forms and training videos, create a note for the orientation manager, and schedule a drug and physical request.
You may want to create an application processing rule that is triggered when a specific type of applicant applies, applying the corresponding tags to the subject record, assiging a recruiter and processor, and even sending a background check request to Asurint.
Our Structured Messaging tool also helps automate and standardize common requests by letting you program standard messaging for providing and requesting information, removing ambiguity and ensuring consistency between drivers and recruiters.
Automation ensures consistency, adds efficiency, and removes hiccups caused by human error or delay. Automating responses, routing, and processes to remove redundant tasks from a recruiter’s day accelerates your hiring and prevents drivers from falling off the hiring path. Last but not least, it frees your recruiter’s time for the things humans are best at, like giving drivers attentive, personalized experiences.
The best part is this automation is already built-in functionality and it’s free. Don’t leave it on the table. Your team will thank you for making their job easier – and you’ll be relieved to know not all robots want to take over the world.
Call us today – our industry-experienced team will listen to how your processes work today and help you add free and easy automation that makes sense for the way your business does business. And you’ll in turn gain more of those hard-to-find drivers more quickly than your competitors.
Interested in learning about even more ways you can accelerate your time to hire? Check out our webinar below!
