Shocking Stat Behind Agency Efficiency

with Alex Reily from Firefish

New Data Shows 44% of Recruiters 'Often Forget to Update Their CRM'

Since May over 500 recruitment business have shared data on their BD strategy. We've collated the data into a report dropping in January 2025, and they're fascinating. This week Alex Reily from Firefish Software shares his insights.

Alex leads Marketing and Outreach at Firefish (award winning tech provider) and is deeply embedded in the recruitment sector so he's the perfect partner to provide feedback on on the state of BD in recruitment - especially on our mind-blowing statistic about CRM usage. As you'll see, Alex goes on to share some deeper insights to help recruitment leaders take action:

Shocking Data

"At Firefish there is an undeniable story that we see and hear time and again: Agencies that are able to get their recruiters to actually use the CRM are more profitable, and by a significant margin too.

Those that adopt a CRM-first approach typically see a 15% reduction in operational costs and a 30% increase in revenue per recruiter, simply by using the systems they are already paying for.

The data from the Recruitment BD Review by Resonant goes a long way to illustrating why this is the case - and why shifting recruiter habits can have such a big impact on your agency’s profitability. With 44% of recruiters saying they often forget to update the CRM [see below], it isn’t hard to see the problem."

"If you’re losing data from half of your recruiters the impact on your business is going to be huge. Remember that any CRM is only as good as the data you feed it – so failing to update relevant information will make your candidate searches and potential matches far less effective, making it unnecessarily harder to find candidates for your clients. But the blame can’t be laid on recruiter’s shoulders without looking at the structure within your agency and CRM.

65% of recruiters say that they often start from scratch with communications as they don’t have structure or templates to follow, so is it really any wonder that people choose to dodge the CRM?

Investing the time to effectively optimise your CRM to your agencies needs is the fastest way to improve your agencies profitability.

And once the system is actually useful to your recruiters they will see the value in taking the time to keep it up to date."

Alex Reily

Raising Performance

I find Alex's take really interesting.

It's not just about having a data first mindset but about giving recruiters the tools to make their day-to-day work more efficient and agile, with frameworks and templates that make the job easy.

What do you think?

The businesses Resonant support are encouraged to go further. We share the importance of not just being a data lead business but a story lead sales team too. Where you celebrate your experiences, turn them into improvements in your processes and tell your clients the story of how you're improving.

That could include data or case studies. It's the kind of thing that founders and senior consultants weave into their BD really well but rookies so often struggle with. Putting a strategy in place to ensure every one of your team is telling the story of your work is a key part of a high performing sales playbook.

The 'Recruiters Sales Playbook '25

Since 2020, I've been helping recruitment businesses turn BD into a competitive advantage, enabling them to grow even in challenging markets. I provide their consultants with the tools to win new business confidently and consistently, and apply our "£90k in 90 days" Blueprint.

The Recruiters Sales Playbook '25 represents the most comprehensive, data backed and consultative BD strategy guide in recruitment. It's trusted by million-dollar-billers as well as rookies who have billed £200k in their first year.

You can hear Jamie Rogers, Business Manager at Darwin, talking about his experience applying it here:

So what do you think:

Are you in that significant number of recruiters who forgets to update the CRM? Or do you have a rock solid data led approach?

How about your culture around story telling and sharing the experiences that are leading you to grow?

As ever I'm really interested to hear from you.

Please share the article with your network and comment with your questions or thoughts on this provocative topic.

Ben

P.S. A huge thanks to Alex and the Firefish team for supporting us in releasing the data. There is more to come from both of us on this in the new year so stay tuned.

P.P.S. If you want to see how your Sales Strategy compares to the average - and get a personalised report - take the assessment here: resonant.scoreapp.com