That was one of the key messages from a recent agency/client event in Barcelona organised by management and executive recruiter Green Park.

Raj Tulsiani, founder and chief executive officer of Green Park, told Recruiter the aim of the event was “to get that really deep understanding of what customers are looking for”, and “to help bring a customer perspective to everything we do as a company, because that gives us a competitive edge”.

The current and recent clients who attended the two-day event at the end of June were: Sharon Kardam, former group head of recruitment at Transport for London; Chris Clay, head of ethical trading iniative recruitment at Cargill International; a third recruiter who wished to remain anonymous. More than 20 of Green Park’s staff took part.

Tulsiani said the company had learned a number of important lessons about what clients expect from agencies:

• transactional agency/client relationships are not enough. Clients expect consultants to “help fill out their knowledge of the market”; for example, by providing information on pay and candidate moves in the market. “You have to be of value before you can build those relationships,” said Tulsiani.
• agencies are representing the client, so each and every candidate should be treated well
• consultants must buy into the corporate brand of the agency.

Kardam, who is about to take up a new position as director of European recruitment at Vistaprint, told Recruiter that the challenge for agencies was how to bring their brand promise down to the level of each consultant’s individual behaviour. “You are only as good as the person who answers the phone,” she said.

“It’s the classical service model: don’t over promise, but over deliver or don’t make the promise at all.”
Tulsiani added that it would have been impossible to get this depth of understanding on the basis of normal day-to-day agency/client relationships.

However, he warned agencies not to rush into putting on such events, especially in their early years. “We would not have been mature enough in our first year. We would have got into an argument. The gut instinct of recruiters is to defend yourself or sell something,” he said.