Becoming the 'best' recruitment agency means knowing how your candidates, clients and staff define 'best' — and what being the best means to them, according to David Freemantle, customer service and leadership expert and business author.

"Whichever organisation it is in the world, they want to be the best. So you have to understand what the best is all about. And then you have to match the people to deliver the best. It's not easy," said Freemantle.

Freemantle is a sharp-eyed critic of customer service and its applications in business and the public sector around the world. His international roster of clients have included the John Lewis Partnership, Singapore Airlines, the Philippine government's Department of Trade and Industry and South African recruitment company, the DAV Professional Placement Group. DAV was named South Africa's Best Company to Work For in the 2006 Deloitte Survey.

Freemantle will speak on 'Leading the way to customer excellence' at the first Recruiter Annual Forum on 24 April in London.

Much of the challenge facing recruitment firms that aspire to be the best stems from the nature of people themselves. "All the problems in the world — with the exception of natural disasters — are caused by people," Freemantle told Recruiter.

"Being world class is about understanding people, understanding organisations, it's about understanding culture — what makes client organisations tick and what makes candidates tick. That is complex — getting inside the candidate's mind, heart, motivations and behaviours, attitudes, for instance. But it is critically important," he said.

"It's not a matter of just ticking boxes on a form — 'this candidate meets nine out of 10 criteria'," he scoffed. He went on to say that understanding the client as a person is equally important. "Do I understand what he or she is looking for? Do I really understand this business? Do I understand their values, their mission, their culture — for whoever I put forward must blend in, be harmonious with that culture."

Human factors are all too often neglected in recruitment, despite the fact that the products in this business are humans, in Freemantle's view. "Relationships, attitudes, behaviours, the psychology, the culture — we take these things for granted," he said. "As soon as you put a candidate, a new recruit into a new organisation, you actually change the organisation."

However, the challenges of truly understanding a candidate especially cannot be underestimated, he pointed out. "When people go for interview, they do not reveal their true selves. That's a reality of life," he said. "We all search for answers that we think are going to satisfy an interviewer. I read story after story in newspapers advising people that when you go for an interview, put on your best clothes. And when we go to interview, we deliberately put on an act."

As recruiters, he said, "you have to get beneath the act, and you have to discover the real person. What is this person really all about? What does this person want to be? You're digging deep into motivation".

Yet issues such as motivation, attitudes or behaviours are not neglected only on the external side of recruitment, such as in client/candidate issues, but inside the business as well, Freemantle points out. "We just don't realise the impact of our own behaviours on organisations," he said.

Little things mean a lot in business success. And ultimately, Freemantle believes there are two aspects to delivering world-class service. "There are systems, and there's psychology. To deliver the best customer service, you must have the best systems — in terms of data bases, the most efficient computer systems, telecommunications, and so forth."

"In terms of psychology," he said, "you need the ability to develop very effective, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with your customers — either the person paying the money or the candidate walking through the door."

Finally, he warns, "if you don't find a better way, someone else will".

• For more information or to book tickets for the Annual Recruiter Forum 2007, visit www.recruiterconferences.co.uk or ring 020 7970 4770.