The world of Payroll Service Bureaus, ASOs, and HROs tends to be divided into two categories: Big box players (or clients who feel safer working with a big HRO), and relatively small HROs who know their clients personally, understand their clients’ businesses, and deliver highly attentive service.
While clients always appreciate better service, the variable economics of small business make SMB clients susceptible to pitches for their business focused solely around price. This can leave smaller HROs vulnerable to big ones who may enjoy some economies of scale.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are 3 tactics that – when deployed together – can set a small bureau’s service offerings and cost structure at least at parity with the big guys, and empower them to win where they always have: on quality. Here are the keys:
1. Technical Advantages
Technology has become the great leveler in every business sector. HRO is no different. The foundation of a proactive approach to client engagement is a full-featured HCM (Human Capital Management) software platform. Whether the initial motivation for adopting the platform is to bullet-proof payroll services, or to extend HRO operations from recruitment to retirement, a robust HCM system is the tool to use.
The efficiencies such software bring to your operations can easily inoculate you from competitive incursions on price. A cloud-based HCM system requires minimal capital investment… from the HRO or their client. The pay-as-you-grow subscription model gives everyone a cost structure that is both adaptable and predictable.
And the range of services a robust HCM can deliver means an HRO cannot be outflanked by a broader offering from a bigger company. Depending on the intuitive UI and ease-of-use, the right HCM technology can trounce competitors on the user experience alone.
2. Drawing on the Knowledge Bank
Of course, software is tied to the company that develops and maintains it. In the case of PrismHR’s HCM, that software is built on decades of experience empowering HROs of all sizes to survive and thrive in markets across the U.S. during every economic climate. This knowledge isn’t just baked into the software. It is available as a human resource to our customers.
PrismHR offers experts with total command of the platform to help customers serve their clients.
What’s more, the PrismHR users’ community represents centuries of collective experience solving HR and payroll challenges for clients. These real-world experiences and insights are often shared freely among peers.
The institutional knowledge extends far past the product to the many different industries in which clients operate. So if a client is approached by a competitor claiming to be an expert in a particular industry, you have experts in your corner too for every aspect of HR operations no matter the client.
3. Standing on Broad Shoulders
This is where the competitive knockout comes in. PrismHR’s HCM offers personnel to administer as many of the functions as you wish. Short-handed? PrismHR can help. Clients asking for additional services? PrismHR can handle that.
PrismHR can even support you in selling in those new services with live demos to the client’s specification, and answer the client’s questions as they arise. This is the kind of partnership and customer support that has made PrismHR the powerhouse software vendor it is.
So don’t let your size be an obstacle to your ambitions. Continue to provide the quality of service your clients love you for, even as you grow your business… and battle back the competition.
To learn more about PrismHR’s HCM and what it can do for your business, visit us at prismhr.com/software/hcm.
