Guzman y Gomez (GYG) Singapore needed an accessible, off-the-shelf tool to reduce interview no-shows, and time spent on hiring and improve employee engagement.
They use Mercu’s onboarding and engagement tools to automate their hiring process and deliver engaging content and surveys to their workforce. Since switching to Mercu, interview no-shows have decreased by over 50%, and the recruitment team saves more than 30 minutes per candidate.
Guzman y Gomez is a fast-casual restaurant franchise headquartered in Australia with over 170 locations, specialising in healthy, fresh and fun-packed Mexican food. In 2022, Guzman y Gomez’s Singapore franchise owner initially partnered with Mercu to automate hiring communications. In 2023, GYG expanded their usage of Mercu to include our engagement suite of products, including engagement surveys, pulse checks, announcements and training reminders.
Challenge: Reduce interview no-show rates without increasing time recruitment team needs to invest
Before partnering with Mercu, GYG used a combination of Whatsapp messages and emails to communicate with candidates around interview scheduling and reminders. This meant that each month their 2-person talent acquisition team had to manually follow up with over 200 candidates, an effort that collectively cost more than 100 people hours.
“We were investing so much time communicating with candidates, yet more than 6 out of 10 candidates weren’t attending the interview. It was a huge waste of time and money given we’d effectively paid for the candidates on the various job boards.” - Mira Ismail, Head of People
GYG was ahead of the curve in recognising that Whatsapp is the most effective way to communicate with a Gen-Z-heavy workforce. However, the prevalence of Whatsapp-based job scams in Singapore combined with their lack of verified Whatsapp numbers was contributing to low candidate engagement.
GYG had a few requirements that any potential solutions had to adhere to:
- Integrations - GYG holds their candidate data in a popular applicant tracking system (ATS) and invests significant resources into integrating its entire software stack. They did not want a standalone solution that moved away from this philosophy.
- Implementation - GYG wanted to be up and running in days, not weeks. This was an acute problem that had to be solved urgently.
- Ease of use - the tool needed to be flexible and self-serve to support adjustments to the workflows and messaging in real-time.
Solution: Use Mercu to automate all candidate communication, including interview scheduling, reminders and offer extension.
Understanding the importance of maintaining GYG’s highly integrated software stack, Mercu integrated directly with their ATS. Mercu also worked with GYG to map the steps of their hiring flow to each candidate touchpoint to ensure they offer an engaging and personalised candidate experience.
With the integration live in the ATS, their recruitment team could now bulk enrol 100s of candidates with the simple touch of a button. The process of inviting 100 people to an interview had been reduced from a manual copy-and-paste task that took hours to two simple clicks.
Candidates receive a highly personalised Whatsapp message from a verified number inviting them to book an interview.
Mercu also seized the opportunity to share FAQs that previously went unanswered or meant the recruitment team had to spend time every day answering the same repetitive questions over and over again.
Result: A game-changing recruiter and candidate experience that gives GYG the advantage in a competitive labour market
Since implementing Mercu, GYG has experienced significant efficiency savings whilst offering a superior and delightful candidate experience compared to other employers in the market. The impact is threefold:
- Time: By automating their previously manual workflows, GYG is collectively saving more than 100 people-hours each month that can be reallocated to higher leverage tasks.
- Money: With no-shows being reduced by 50%, GYG has a more efficient pipeline. They’re no longer wasting money paying job boards for candidates that don’t show up.
- Reputation: As a company known and respected for its innovation in the fast-casual restaurant space, they now have a candidate experience to match.
“Our people are our business, and in such a competitive job market, we can’t afford to lose out on candidates or inflate our HQ teams to compensate. Mercu has given us an edge that our competitors don’t have, we now reach and engage candidates faster than anyone in the market, yet spend a fraction of the time we used to.” - Josh Bell, General Manager
Guzman y Gomez (GYG) Singapore needed an accessible, off-the-shelf tool to reduce interview no-shows, and time spent on hiring and improve employee engagement.
They use Mercu’s onboarding and engagement tools to automate their hiring process and deliver engaging content and surveys to their workforce. Since switching to Mercu, interview no-shows have decreased by over 50%, and the recruitment team saves more than 30 minutes per candidate.
Guzman y Gomez is a fast-casual restaurant franchise headquartered in Australia with over 170 locations, specialising in healthy, fresh and fun-packed Mexican food. In 2022, Guzman y Gomez’s Singapore franchise owner initially partnered with Mercu to automate hiring communications. In 2023, GYG expanded their usage of Mercu to include our engagement suite of products, including engagement surveys, pulse checks, announcements and training reminders.
Challenge: Reduce interview no-show rates without increasing time recruitment team needs to invest
Before partnering with Mercu, GYG used a combination of Whatsapp messages and emails to communicate with candidates around interview scheduling and reminders. This meant that each month their 2-person talent acquisition team had to manually follow up with over 200 candidates, an effort that collectively cost more than 100 people hours.
“We were investing so much time communicating with candidates, yet more than 6 out of 10 candidates weren’t attending the interview. It was a huge waste of time and money given we’d effectively paid for the candidates on the various job boards.” - Mira Ismail, Head of People
GYG was ahead of the curve in recognising that Whatsapp is the most effective way to communicate with a Gen-Z-heavy workforce. However, the prevalence of Whatsapp-based job scams in Singapore combined with their lack of verified Whatsapp numbers was contributing to low candidate engagement.
GYG had a few requirements that any potential solutions had to adhere to:
- Integrations - GYG holds their candidate data in a popular applicant tracking system (ATS) and invests significant resources into integrating its entire software stack. They did not want a standalone solution that moved away from this philosophy.
- Implementation - GYG wanted to be up and running in days, not weeks. This was an acute problem that had to be solved urgently.
- Ease of use - the tool needed to be flexible and self-serve to support adjustments to the workflows and messaging in real-time.
Solution: Use Mercu to automate all candidate communication, including interview scheduling, reminders and offer extension.
Understanding the importance of maintaining GYG’s highly integrated software stack, Mercu integrated directly with their ATS. Mercu also worked with GYG to map the steps of their hiring flow to each candidate touchpoint to ensure they offer an engaging and personalised candidate experience.
With the integration live in the ATS, their recruitment team could now bulk enrol 100s of candidates with the simple touch of a button. The process of inviting 100 people to an interview had been reduced from a manual copy-and-paste task that took hours to two simple clicks.
Candidates receive a highly personalised Whatsapp message from a verified number inviting them to book an interview.
Mercu also seized the opportunity to share FAQs that previously went unanswered or meant the recruitment team had to spend time every day answering the same repetitive questions over and over again.
Result: A game-changing recruiter and candidate experience that gives GYG the advantage in a competitive labour market
Since implementing Mercu, GYG has experienced significant efficiency savings whilst offering a superior and delightful candidate experience compared to other employers in the market. The impact is threefold:
- Time: By automating their previously manual workflows, GYG is collectively saving more than 100 people-hours each month that can be reallocated to higher leverage tasks.
- Money: With no-shows being reduced by 50%, GYG has a more efficient pipeline. They’re no longer wasting money paying job boards for candidates that don’t show up.
- Reputation: As a company known and respected for its innovation in the fast-casual restaurant space, they now have a candidate experience to match.
“Our people are our business, and in such a competitive job market, we can’t afford to lose out on candidates or inflate our HQ teams to compensate. Mercu has given us an edge that our competitors don’t have, we now reach and engage candidates faster than anyone in the market, yet spend a fraction of the time we used to.” - Josh Bell, General Manager
