Staffing Robot - Web design and marketing services for companies in the staffing industry

Staffing Robot Gets a New Look!

There's a saying you may have heard before - "the cobblers children have no shoes." This saying could definitely be applied to us. When we launched Staffing Robot as a website design and marketing services firm for staffing companies we were overwhelmed with the amount of companies seeking out our services. We love all the companies we've had the opportunity to work with and are really proud of the work we've been doing together. But we've been doing so much work we never really took the time to do any for ourselves.

Until today!

We're completely excited to now show you the new look of Staffing Robot.

Next week we'll be launching our new brand to include a new website, mobile website, blog, social pages, portfolio site and much more!

Here are the new items we're looking forward to showing off.

New Logo:

We've always had a bit of a retro look and color palette but wanted to take this even further. We've created lots of different robots but we'll let you find them all on our site next week. 

New Website:

With our website we had 3 main goals (stop me if you've heard this one before):

• Simple
• Useful
• Creative

We think we achieved these goals. Instead of having too many options and a bunch of content to navigate through we've created only two main navigation options (About and Services) that take your through a few slides each, describing the services we offer and information about our company.

From there, we made finding the services customers are interested in super simple. We consolidated this information in one location - right under the 'How can we help?' tab found along the bottom of every page.

Finally, instead of a traditional website look we went with something more unique and creative. We built the site to work more like a presentation and it's lots of fun to swipe through on your iPad. Give it a try!

Our old corporate site was located at http://www.staffingrobotonline.com. However, starting next week you'll find our corporate site at http://www.staffingrobot.com and our blog at http://www.staffingrobot.com/blog.

New Mobile Website:

One of the best services we provide to staffing companies is mobile website design and development. So,of course we couldn't forget a mobile site for ourselves!  Our mobile site is simple to get through, optimized for smart phones and provides you with all the information you need to learn more about us or contact us.

New Blog:

Staffing Robot started as a blog so we put some extra attention into our new blog design. Starting next week you'll find our blog at http://www.staffingrobot.com/blog. Our new blog will let you easily explore categories, feature our latest blog, comment on our posts and view our social streams. Also, since we had so many people interested in advertising with us we've created some ad space to help promote your services! Want to run an ad? Contact us and let us know.

Our goal is to keep bringing you relevant news and information on the staffing industry, specifically related to design, marketing and technology so be sure to subscribe to our blog via RSS or email.

Social Sites:

We are also updating the look of our social sites next week so be sure to follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook to check out the new pages!

New business cards:

Note the new phone number! 866.991.1849.

T Shirts!

Oh yes! We also have T-Shirts! Everyone loves T-shirts right? If you're a Staffing Robot customer we'll be sending you one of these. If not, but you [robot head] staffing tell us and we'll let you know how to get one!

We have much more to announce related to our new brand over the next several weeks, but we'll leave it at this for now. Let us know what you think about our new look below. And, if you're ready to be our next innovate client, be the first to use our new contact form on our new site (my personal favorite part of the site).

And don't forget - starting next week, you'll find our company site at http://www.staffingrobot.com and our blog at http://www.staffingrobot.com/blog.

How Staffing Agencies Can Reward Employees For Exceptional Customer Service

Customer service is the key to success for almost every business - especially when it comes to staffing agencies. Your employees spend hours every day talking to your customers and candidates. Their interactions can make a huge difference in your customer satisfaction and ultimately your bottom line. 

Measuring customer happiness for your staffing company is critical. However, motivating your employees to provide great customer service is also something you should should focus on. If you're like a lot of companies though, it can be difficult and time consuming to know where to get started with all of this.

Look no further! Today we are happy to announce the simplest way to instantly motivate and reward your top performing employees for providing exceptional customer service. Introduction Kudos - a new feature in Hively!

What are Kudos?

Kudos are a simple way for employees to give each other feedback or for managers to reward employees. Think of it like a ‘thanks’ or a ‘pat on the back.’ 

Just like with Hively customer feedback, if you receive a Kudo you will be instantly notified and have the Hively Kudos badge prominently displayed on your leaderboard profile for your team to see. You will also receive +1 count for each Kudo you receive. Kudos are separated from customer feedback and don’t effect your customer happiness scores.

But we didn’t stop there!

What’s better than getting a Kudo? Getting a Kudo with a gift card reward! We recently partnered with Tango Card to enable our customers to provide real time rewards to top performing employees. Tango Card provides virtual gift cards that can be redeemed for cash or other gift cards like Amazon, Starbucks, Nike and Zappos. If you’re a Hively team member, simply sign up with Tango Card and you can start adding gift cards to any Kudos you send your team members.

To learn more about the other great features we released in Hively today check out the full announcement here and let your staffing company get started with rewarding your employees! Sign up for Hively. It's free to try!

 

Crowdfunding Healthcare Startups: MedStartr

New healthcare ideas can be hard to get started. Mostly because of the time and cost associated with creating new devices or getting through regulations.

However, one company is trying to change all of that.

Crowdfunding has been very successful in the tech and creative industries. Perhaps the most successful platform being Kickstarter. Now, a new company called MedStartr is bringing a similar concept to healthcare. They have a slightly different take on their crowdfunding efforts to address the unique requirements of healthcare.

In their own words:

It’s the only crowdfunding platform designed specifically for healthcare where doctors, patients, hospitals, pharma, and payers are all important backers of innovation. Previously, hospitals, doctors and patients never had an effective way to do this.

If you have a healthcare related idea but don't have the capital to get it off the ground just yet, check out MedStartr. It could make your idea a reality.

 

Awesome Apps: Dropbox

Dropbox is something we started using casually a couple of years ago. However, it's now a critical part of our business and my personal work flow.

In there words:

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. This means that any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phonesand even the Dropbox website.

Dropbox also makes it super easy to share with others, whether you're a student or professional, parent or grandparent. Even if you accidentally spill a latte on your laptop, have no fear! You can relax knowing that Dropbox always has you covered, and none of your stuff will ever be lost.

Dropbox essentially helps you move all of your files to the cloud. Instead of setting up and maintaining a bunch of costly servers to store your personal and business documents, you can simply let Dropbox deal with it.

We keep all of our company files and documents on Dropbox. This process has saved us $1000's of dollars each year. The files are accessed just like they were in your computer file directory and best of all - enables us to access any file we need from any internet connected device - mobile or desktop. No VPNs, no single machine access, no nonsense. We can also share files of any size with any of our customers or partners whenever they need access. Brilliant.

We've worked with lots of staffing companies that still spend tons of time, money and human resources managing their own internal servers. For many companies - access and security concerns are still the main reason keeping these companies from going to the cloud. It's unfortunate because the costs and security issues of hosting your own internal servers are much more of a risk. You can read more about the safety and security of Dropbox here.

Using Dropbox is just a start. If you'd like to learn more about moving your staffing company to the cloud we can help. Let's chat!

QR Code Patient Safety Campaign

A few weeks ago we blogged about creative QR Code marketing tips your staffing company can use. Here is a great example of an innovative and creative way one group is using QR Codes to improve patient safety issues.

It's called the 2012 SAFE CARE Patient Safety Education Program. It's free and for use at any hospital. It has been brought together by Safe Care Campaign, Kimberly-Clark, The Joint Commission Speak Up™ Campaign, The Patient Channel and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The program provides a free poster to any hospital or medical center and contains QR Code links to common patient safety information. The QR Codes enable patients to consume the information through any mobile device. The posters can also be customized specific to your organization for a nominal fee.

You can learn more and download the QR Code Patient Safety Poster here.

 

It Gives Me The Feeling Of Love

This is pretty cool. Give it a look.

Does Your Staffing Product or Service Only Work in Internet Explorer? You're Missing Out!

Although Internet Explorer (IE) has enjoyed a dominant position in the browser world for years it is quickly losing traction. Adoption and use of browsers such as Safari, Chrome and Firefox have been increasing dramatically. It's only a matter of time before IE is no longer the dominant browser.

So what does this mean for you? It means it's past time to start seriously considering these other browsers when it comes to your product/service delivery on the web. We still find several companies in the staffing industry that have 'IE only' products or have not even cross-browsered their website outside of IE. If you deliver a software application or have a website, you can no longer afford to ignore these browsers. In doing so, you are missing out on a large part of your potential audience and greatly reducing your customer satisfaction.

If, in order to experience your product or website, you're forcing users or visitors that typically work in Chrome, Safari or Firefox to switch to IE, you are greatly hurting their satisfaction with your product. Chrome, Safari and Firefox are modern browsers that support current web standards and technologies. IE (even IE9) simply does not. This means you're telling your customers that are used to a much more quality experience, to accept a downgraded experience with your product or service. Is this really the message you want to be sending them? Do you promote this message in any other aspect of your business?

As web developers, part of our challenge is to develop engaging and interactive websites and applications that work on all browsers and platforms. IE is always a challenge to work in because it simply cannot support all the new and exciting things we can do on the web today. In order to support IE, we practice a development process known as 'progressive enhancement.' This basically means that we frist build the site the way we want it to work in Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Then we have to go back and remove, or dramatically change most (if not all) of these elements for IE. Doing this greatly decreases the overall experience of the site and also increases the cost of it's development. The alternative is to have a consistent experience in all browsers, which means your website or product cannot embrace modern web standards and technologies. We think that's lame.

Many development companies stopped supporting IE 6 and 7 awhile ago. Some are now even saying they will only support the most recent version of IE. As more and more development companies continue to go this path, the support and usage of IE will continue to decline even faster.

In Summary

Safari, Chrome and Firefox provide a relatively consistent experience due to their embrace of modern standards and technologies. They also auto-update users to the latest version. Further, their combined use percentage far outnumbers IE. Therefore, if you're building a new product or website don't leave out these 'other' browsers. If you have an existing website or web application, it's true that adding support for these additional browsers will increase your development and maintenance costs. However, the cost of losing customers and delivering a poor quality experience to your customers is much greater.

 

QR Code Marketing Tips For Your Staffing Company

Have you seen these odd looking shapes before?

 

 

 

 

 

Most likely you've seen them on movie posters or magazine ads. Although similar, these symbols are not bar codes or UPC symbols. This funny looking square of black pixels is called a 'Quick Response Code' or 'QR Code' for short.

If you're unfamiliar, A QR Code is a simple ways for people to quickly interact with web based content through a mobile device. QR Code usage has increased greatly in recent years due to the wide-spread public acceptance of smart phones. Nielsen recently released a study revealing that 43% of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers own smart phones. For subscribers between the ages of 25 - 34, that percentage goes up to 62%. All of these phones are capable of scanning QR Codes.

The process for interacting with a QR Code is simple:
1) Download a QR Code reader app on your smart phone. You can easily find them in the appropriate app store for your iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile phone, etc. Some cost money but there's really no reason to pay for one. The free ones work just fine.

2) Now, when you see a QR Code, bring up your QR Code reader app on your phone. Next, scan the image, similar to taking a picture (many of these apps scan as soon as the QR Code is in focus), and you will be taken to web content through your mobile phone such as a web page, contact information, images, etc.

 

QR Codes are simple to make. You can have your favorite staffing website design and marketing company make them for you or you can create them yourself for free. Just google for 'QR Code generator' and you'll have plenty of good options. You can generate QR Codes in different sizes and you can also brand QR Codes with different symbols and colors. Be careful though, if you change up too many of the pixels the QR Codes won't be scannable. Also, some QR Code readers have a difficult time with QR Codes in different colors. Just be sure you test your final product with multiple devices and apps.

So, now that you know what a QR Code is and how to make one, most likely you're next question is - "What can my company actually do with QR Codes?"

Here are some ideas and creative suggestions on how your staffing company can effectively use QR Codes in your marketing efforts:

Magazine and other print ads. QR Codes are a great way to bridge your offline and online marketing efforts. Simply add a QR Code into any print material you produce and you'll be able to instantly share web content with your audience. The best part? You now have an even easier way to track the success of these print campaigns.

Company feedback cards. Looking for customer feedback? Create some feedback cards with QR Codes to hand out to your customers. You can create cards to ask for company wide feedback or employee specific feedback.

 

Business cards. Placing a QR Code on your business card is a great way to present a more interactive connection with someone you just met or a new customer.

 

Poster displays and clothing. Next time your at a trade show try placing QR Codes on all of your posters, display materials, even company clothing (shirts, hats, etc.)

Event marketing. The next time you're participating in or putting on an event, consider places you could add a QR code. Everything from leave behinds to print outs of our slides make great places for QR Codes.

Where should your QR Codes link to? Thought you'd never ask! Here are some suggestions on where you can link your QR Codes to for the best results:

• Your cmpany website
• Your company Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social pages
• Web contests, games and referral programs
• Exclusive content
• Special coupons or discounts
• Targeted landing pages - especially ones with forms to help you generate new business leads.
• Company contact information.
• Personal contact information. QR Codes can do more than simply link somewhere. They can actually store data like your personal contact information. This way, when someone scans your QR Code, all of the contained contact information is instantly pulled into the contact list on their device. 
• Downloadable content like a white paper or infographic.
• Your job board. Recruiting new candidates? Handing out cards and promo items with QR Codes linked to your job board is a great way to get the attention of new candidates on the go.

Two final tips when it comes to QR Code marketing.
1) Be sure any web page you bring someone to from a QR Code is optimized for mobile devices. Using a mobile marketing tactic like QR Codes and asking people to engage with you through their mobile device, only to bring them to a web page not optimized for mobile devices is a major fail.

2) Don't put QR Codes in your email signature or on a web page. No one is going to scan an image on a web page with their mobile device - just to go to a web page. Please just don't do it. Please.

QR Codes are an excellent new marketing opportunity for your staffing company. There is also a lot of supporting data out there suggesting QR Codes are here to stay and rapidly gaining in popularity/usage. Think of QR Codes as a perfect way to bridge your offline and online marketing efforts for your staffing company.

Questions or want more information on what your staffing company can do with QR Codes? Contact Staffing Robot today.

Helpful links and Resources:

QR Code Apps:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qr-app/id320140689?mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qr-code-reader-and-scanner/id388175979?mt=8
http://news.cnet.com/qr-code-readers-for-iphone
https://market.android.com/details?id=la.droid.qr&hl=en

QR Code Generators:
http://www.systemid.com/barcode_generator/
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
http://goqr.me/
http://tag.microsoft.com/home.aspx

Creative examples of QR Code marketing:
http://mobilecustomersurvey.com/
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/inspiring-qr-codes/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GbplSdh0lGU
http://cardswapp.com/
http://www.awwwards.com/10-creative-uses-of-qr-codes.html

Bullhorn Launches New Career Site: theFIT

Bullhorn released another interesting product today: theFIT.

 

In there words:

theFIT.com is a place where job seekers and employees can get answers to those awkward questions that they really want to know, but would never ask.

Bullhorn claims the intent of theFIT is not a "dig-up-dirt site" but more about understanding the corporate culture of where people work or want to work.

What do you think?

 

Design Your Own Scrubs on TailorMed

Brilliant business by TailorMed. Design your own scrubs for you or your business.

This is an incredibly simple site with a great business behind it. If you're looking for some unique scrubs there's no better way to get them than by making your own.