Bridget Harper:

I mean that is smart. I mean obviously y'all are doing a lot of the things right not only internally but externally too with your clients and your talent. We have all sorts of questions and I guarantee we're going to even come up with more and then we will just force Tracey to do this with us again because what we do here.

Tracey Klein:

Love it.

Bridget Harper:

That's how we are when we like you, you're stuck with us, unfortunately.

Tracey Klein:

Excellent.

Bridget Harper:

Yeah, that's true. So with not only your depth of knowledge and experience and the success that Synergis has seen, you're a 10-year diamond winner with client and talent satisfaction, which is remarkable. I mean, that is consecutive years. It's hard to keep that NPS score as high as it is. Can you share what this whole thing means to you?

Tracey Klein:

Well, it is incredibly meaningful for us and certainly some pressure on me. Imagine with my tenure these last three years, not making it to that tenure diamond award. I would not want to be in those shoes, but here's why it's so important. So 10 years, that takes us back to 2023, sorry, 2013 or 2014. And we have experienced just exponential growth and much of that growth in the past three years. And it's often significant bursts of growth upwards of 33% one year. So that means from not just revenue, but of course that means number of clients, hiring managers, consultants, internal employees and I think one of the risks that you can experience in massive growth is something gets lost along the way. Right? You can lose sight of your mission and your values. You could possibly come too busy to follow up on the care of your candidates or your customers. You skip it a few days, oh gosh, I'll get back to it next week. And then all of a sudden it's six months later and we've all lost sight of it. Our industry's high touch or we believe it should be.

And for that reason, we really do have an entire care process. We have a consultant advocate specifically in this role, but we use a variety of touch points with our clients and with our candidates throughout the journey. But it's easy to feel nervous in times. In those busy times when you feel like, gosh, has that slipped and all of a sudden the survey is here, is that slipped? And the ClearlyRated survey is really key and validating for us that we've maintained those values quarter to our business each and every year, which began with our founder now 26 years ago. So it's an understatement, right, to share how excited and how pleased we are to be able to work with you and have these types of results.

Bridget Harper:

I mean, it's impressive when you look at, as you mentioned, a decade's worth of success plus, I mean, it doesn't just start 10 years ago. It is at the leadership level what you're building and just making sure it's communicated throughout your entire organization as you grow as, oh my gosh, as everything changes, technology changes, skillsets change, needs change, where you work changes, everything changes. And if you lose focus on the things that are core to your business, the things that are core, your values, your mission, if everything that you just mentioned if you are not keeping tabs on that and still following through with your promises, it's a lot. It's a lot of change. And knowing that Synergis has evolved in the last 10 years, 10 years plus, 26 years altogether here, is there other ways that we have helped along that journey? Hopefully confirming some of the things that you're doing and supporting you on this journey as well.

Tracey Klein:

Certainly. And you think about maintaining it through Covid as well. This organization started East Coast based and did move, expand nationally and again with significant people all around now, but in the West Coast predominantly. And when you go from people being in an office every day into not seeing each other for 18 months and being able to maintain that, I feel really good. I mean, that was before I hear I can't, that was the organization doing what they do, right? But going back to your question on that journey, so this year we had the highest NPS score ever with you all, right and simultaneously supported the most customers ever. I think for sure, we must be able to tie that back to ClearlyRated somehow, right?

Bridget Harper:

I'll take it. I will take it quick, yes.

Tracey Klein:

But you can see the correlation, right? It's easy to treat surveys as a one-time event for some organizations. All of a sudden you get a reminder from your operations team or your marketing team, Hey, guess what, it's time for our survey again. It's like, oh, what's been going on lately? And for us, it's not just that. I think that's the wrong frame of mind. You really want that to be ingrained in your daily service, everyday culture. This is who we are and who this is how we operate. But again, you keep us on our toes, you help us validate that we're doing this consistently and there's been a few detractors along the way, but we take that information and we look from year to year. Do we have a same detractors we had last year? We have a new detractor. Why is that? What can we link back to last year? Have we progressed? So there are just so many ways that continuous relationship and that constant checks and balances really helps us evolve as well.

Ryen Salo:

And I mean having the detractors, there's just like you're saying, there's a few detractors. There isn't anybody here, including us, at ClearlyRated who don't have our detractor from time to time. That's what helps your business. To be honest. If we didn't have any detractors, I would actually be more concerned If we didn't have any detractors, I would say, okay, no, there's something wrong. Something's off. Something's strange is happening. What's going on? We need to work through this. So with that feedback that you have received, you shared some examples of positive and negative feedback, but how has that feedback impacted your business?

Tracey Klein:

So I have a specific example here that I want to get to if you'll bear with my story for a few minutes. So I personally thrive off of feedback and I encourage my teams and the people I mentor and work with to do the same. Interestingly enough, I had a leader, a boss manager of mine several years ago who during my yearly review would tell me time and time again, we're just always so impressed on how well you take feedback. And I loved that. I mean, I loved that there were thankfully many other things to say, but that was part of it. He also mentioned that I had a great sense of humor and that really contributed to the overall spirit of the team. So I'll take that as well.

Ryen Salo:

That's wonderful.

Tracey Klein:

I think I'm funnier than other people think I am. Right? I've heard that before too.

Ryen Salo:

Don't we all?

Tracey Klein:

But if you can take feedback, I believe it's a good judge of character and you can either maturely take it, accept the feedback, take it home, think about it and respond accordingly. Or we see the opposite. People get angry, emotional feel it's unjust. There's an excuse, there's a reason for all of this. So my philosophy is feedback no matter how unjust you think it might be, feedback is always a good thing. So when we gain all the feedback from ClearlyRated, we compile it. We look for trends like themes, positive and or negative, but this helps us identify if it feels like a one-off scenario or something bigger that needs addressing or an enhanced process, whatever it can be, this can also validate some situations that we feel to be true. And here's my example. Well, I should also share, we share all feedback with our account executives and recruiters.

We package it appropriately, particularly if it's not ideal feedback, but they get to see every written comment. And first of all, mostly it's a morale booster because they know it's a part of their job. It's a process that we go through. It's a sincere process, but it's a process we go through. But it really uplifts that individual team member at the time and reminds us how meaningful it is to, particularly in our consultant's feedback, our customers. Sure, of course as well. But that consultant feedback, when they mentioned a time or two, gosh, you prepared me for the interview, you were transparent. That just helps that recruiter or account executive really take note of it and remember how meaningful it is. But where I want to go with the example is I mentioned a few minutes ago, the consultant advocate team we have, and we invested in this consultant advocate team about four years ago.

So we're well down our tenure path with ClearlyRated, and they could really dig in and specialize on the onboarding process and the ERP process and multiple checkpoints, not only from the account executives and our recruiters, but personal kind of care team. That's not inexpensive, right? I mean, it's considerable amount of money and some we don't think this, but some might consider it a non-revenue generating role. But what we found, and we believe this to be true, that it was absolutely we're getting return on investment. But now what we can see time and time again, these past four years that they've been here, many times their names come up in the comments. Those four names, many, many others. But those four names are constantly gaining positive feedback and we're like, you know what? ClearlyRated has shown us the ROI on this role right here.

Ryen Salo:

Amazing. That's so huge. I love hearing that. It's just such an incredible, first of all, to be able to identify that, to know, okay, we've been doing the survey for this long, this is the feedback that we're getting. This feedback requires a team of dedicated individuals to make sure that we are meeting the mark. That's huge. And not everybody has that. Not everybody can say that they're able to do that. And you're saying it's not that it doesn't cost money, but you're seeing the positive ROI of that. And I think that that is just such an important piece of survey feedback that many companies, even with the best intentions, just miss the mark. Because if you are not able to really dig through the feedback and address it, good or bad, there is not going to be any growth. So it's harder to succeed in that way. So I love that Synergis is doing that. Kudos to all of you. So cool.

Tracey Klein:

Thank you. An awesome team.

Ryan Salo:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious too, to me, it kind of sounds like the survey program, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but kind of helped spur in that role. So I'm assuming that with the program, it's kind of allowed the growth within the team for that succession. Is that right?

Tracey Klein:

That's exactly right. When you think about when we started this right, it was kind of in the brink of Covid. And so those are easy positions for some organizations like, well, is this the right investment at the time? So I think it's also when you engage with an organization ClearlyRated that consistency is how you can really measure. So every single year we're going to be a part of it just because it's maybe not such a great year or there's a lot of turmoil or whatever, we're not going to stop being part of ClearlyRated, and that's how you can see your growth and your results

Ryen Salo:

Yeah.

Bridget Harper:

I mean, Tracey, I really also am impressed with the level of transparency. I think that's another place where clients can fall short is when you keep the feedback at a leadership level and you're not sharing it with recruiters, with account executives, with the team, then it does feel a little cloak and dagger. Everything is totally fine. We're fine over here. And when you're sharing everything in the appropriate way too, it is very easy for folks to get defensive. And if you're looking at it, especially as an organization, as an opportunity to grow, we've got a new challenge we have, we've uncovered some areas that we can improve on. This is a huge help for the entire company, not just you. This is here, this is what we're,

Tracey Klein:

It's for everybody.

Bridget Harper:

Yeah, it's for everyone.

Tracey Klein:

This is not our founder was, yeah, our founder was always in transparency from our own internal financial statistics to whatever the case may be. It's always been a part of our culture is that transparency and people, they can't improve if they don't hear sometimes not so positive experience. It happens. And you can also, our teams that we work with tend to know what's going on so well that we'll look at something, they're like, I know exactly what happened in that situation. They already know like, yep, okay, I got it. I can explain that. Or again, very helpful if I didn't realize that we weren't aware of that. We need to look into that.

Ryen Salo:

And it's also, I think it really speaks volume to your delivery of that. You mentioned earlier that you package it up and you share it with them in that spirit of transparency, and you're packing it in a way that if there is feedback that is maybe not the best, and you're not just going to pass it off to them and say, Hey, deal with this. It's you're being mindful of the delivery in which you're providing that information to them. And I think that is such an incredible thing to do because sometimes feedback is going to catch people off guard. Like you're saying, there are plenty of opportunities where people are like, oh, I know exactly what happened with that. But then there are plenty of times where you get feedback and you're blindsided. You had no idea that that was how this person was feeling. And so to have it delivered in such a way that says, we're going to work through this together. Here's how we're going to do that, and here's how I think it should go. Let's collaborate and work together on how best to address this. That's such an important thing. And I think it just speaks volumes again for how Synergis is managing that process.

Tracey Klein:

Thank you. I mean, we do in the organizations just by thought as a leader is feedback needs to be an everyday ongoing piece of communication. Because if you don't, and you do it once a year, or you do it when something bad comes up that makes people nervous or it's not expected, or they're only hearing it once. So that feedback has to be continuous.

Bridget Harper:

It also goes very well with the care aspect too. It's not only do you have a care team, you all care about the experience of your clients, of your candidates, of your coworkers. You're definitely walking the walk. When you're also looking at brand reputation has there been any correlation of the success of the survey program, the impact on your brand reputation that you could maybe give us some insight on?

Tracey Klein:

Yeah, sure. I mean, first ClearlyRated as an industry benchmark, right? It's well known. You have high standards, which we appreciate.

I do believe it's anything below a nine is either passive or a detractor. So you got to really, really make an impression to stay in those nine and 10 categories. But it's significant. We believe various awards and accolades really add to the confidence of our customers, our prospects, and candidates. So we always want to point back to, hey, it's not just what we're telling you others are telling you that same thing and by a really reputable organization. So in this day, with social media and all the outlets, we have to communicate that brand and displaying this type of success, we have to put it everywhere. So it's on your websites, it's in your collateral, it's in your LinkedIn and TikTok and Instagram or whatever. I don't actually have TikTok. I do,

Ryen Salo:

Do I either do. I don't have it. Don't know.

Bridget Harper:

You're right. It's definitely there. It's,

Tracey Klein:

I'm not putting TikTok, but Joselyn might talking about our marketing team. So we need that. And it's that third-party validation because we can talk about our successes. We've got our case studies, we can talk about how great we are, but that's not what people want to hear. People want to hear it from others. So as you continue to see these types of successes, keep it out there with your brand and your reputation. We know it helps us, and we would encourage in the very politest of ways, and when we're speaking with consultants or prospects and customers like, hey, how about the other folks? Are they gaining these types of accolades and awards for ClearlyRated or otherwise, right?

Bridget Harper:

Yeah. Bingo, true.

Ryen Salo:

Bingo. Nothing.

Bridget Harper:

Anything that helps. You can say you're doing a great job. And when you get the feedback from hundreds and years worth of testimonials from your clients, your candidates, you are not a question mark. If you're a good partner, you're a good partner. If you are looking for a position, you go to Synergis. If you are looking to fill placements, you're going to go to Synergis because it's not a risky move. You have de-risked this partnership because of this validation of decades of feedback. It's not a question mark. And you just continue to do what you're doing, take the feedback and improve. It's an ongoing continuous journey that you are taking not only your candidates and your clients on, it's also your employees too. So it's a lot and you're doing it really, really well.

Tracey Klein:

Well, thank you. We certainly try, but it's the team, it's our people. It's the people on the front line. And I was reading, knowing we were having this discussion coming up, I was reading through some of the results. Again, this is probably the fifth time I've read through the results and comments, and I was looking at it late last night. We talked about sleep, but I was looking at it late last night and I was like, I'm so touched by what these people are saying about our recruiters. I have to go back in and tell that recruiter that tomorrow. Have I thanked you lately again for this comment, right? You've seen it, but it's all with our frontline workers.

Bridget Harper:

And just finding a job in this climate is so stressful. So if you can work with somebody and take some of that stress and feel like they're not alone in job search, job hunts, it is playing a very critical role in someone's livelihood, not for the light of heart.