Element ATS - 2021 recap

Element ATS 2021 recap

Element ATS has doubled the number of customers. The result itself sounds good, but we are not satisfied. Find out what we are happy about and where we see room for improvement.

At the end of 2021, we have twice as many customers in the Element, compared to the previous year. This seems like a good result, but we feel that real growth is yet to come.

Why do I think the best is yet to come? What are we satisfied with, and what are we not? Here is a summary of our ATS year, focusing on three issues: sales, churn, support.

Sales

The growth in the number of customers using Element, measured from December 2020 to December 2021 (chart above), is precisely x 2.07.

The doubling of the number of customers is, on the one hand, a good result and, on the other, leaves one unsatisfied.

Let us start with the positives:

1. The doubling in itself shows a good direction of development. We are growing.

2. 2020 was the year of the pandemic. It wasn’t easy to forecast anything then and think about good sales results. However, in 2021, the world was already returning to normal, and business started to function normally despite the pandemic. The good sales result was an important signal that we had survived the worst and could look to the future with optimism.

3. 2021 was also the first year when we could sell Element 2.0, a completely new ATS system. Element 2.0 replaced Element 1.0, the previous ATS we developed in 2014. Element 2.0 was written from scratch based on five years of experience and customer feedback. (See a short video demonstrating the differences between version 1 and 2) Strong sales results confirmed that building a new ATS system focused on maximum user convenience and agile recruitment was a hit.

4. We doubled sales by minimizing marketing costs. We had already cut unnecessary expenses during the pandemic and lowered costs to an absolute minimum. To achieve this, we focused more on automation tools that help us to generate new leads and brand recognition. Still, I was responsible for all the product demos, offers, onboarding, and customer care. On top of this, I regularly created the content for our blog, newsletter, social media, and organized webinars.

5. The result was achieved despite the fact, that our ATS’ landing page visitors cannot create accounts in Element by themself. Those interested in trying out Element ATS usually send us requests using the contact form available on the landing page. Then, I contact each interested company and carry out the onboarding process. However, some people would prefer to access the system without unnecessary contact and without waiting, and unfortunately, we lose some of these leads. Therefore, I believe that we can have better sales results after providing visitors with the possibility to create accounts in our ATS without our help.

Why the shortfall remains:

1. The lack of the option mentioned above to create a user account in Element ATS directly on the landing page has probably reduced the number of acquired customers. Currently, 86% of people who click on the “schedule a demo” button do not submit an application form. We assume that this indicator, and thus the sales result, would have been more favorable if we had implemented the discussed function last year.

2. The appearance of the contact form on the ATS’ landing page also had room for improvement, and its imperfections certainly hurt conversions.

3. The lack of optimization of my time management may also have negatively affected the sales result.

Overall, we are moderately satisfied, there is still a lot of room for improvement, while we are optimistic about the sales forecast this year.

Churn

A word about churn, which measures the rate of customer loss. Churn is one of the primary indicators for assessing the health of businesses run under the saas model. In the case of our ATS, churn was relatively high among customers working on Element 1.0. However, churn has dropped dramatically among companies using Element 2.0 (almost all current customers) and remains low.

Support

The less intuitive and problematic an ATS (and any system) is, the more help users need. Therefore, we built Element 2.0 to make it as intuitive and agile as possible.

Intuitive means making everyday use of the ATS easy and enjoyable. Agile means that the system, or an individual recruitment project, can be freely adjusted to current, dynamically changing needs.

It seems that we achieved the goal. It is indicated, among other things, by the graph presenting the number of requests addressed to us by Element users:

As you can see, since June, the number of support tickets has not only stopped increasing but has decreased while the number of users increased. For easy comparison once again a sales chart from the same period:

In addition to a well-thought-through user interface of the ATS, we have also provided a full-scale help center. Moreover, every new customer receives free training. Each user also receives automated training and a series of chat and email messages to help them feel comfortable in Element in no time.

The help center fulfills its role well. The vast majority of users (578 requests out of 648) who tried the help center found the answer to their question themselves:

Conversational support funnel system ATS Element 2021

Customers

Finally, let’s talk about the most important – Element’s customers. In 2021 we were joined by companies, small and large, from various industries. Movido, Blachotrapez, Masterpress or Sanpro Synergy from the Impel Group are just a few examples.

What to expect in 2022?

We look into the future with optimism. As I write these last sentences, I see a record number of new clients who joined our ATS in January. So the year has started well! Let’s hope that the results will fund at least a fraction of all those ideas that make my head swell.

Keep your fingers crossed, and good luck with your plans!

DISCOVER ELEMENT!

Fast, agile and user-friendly ATS created by recruiters for recruiters
Maciej Michalewski

Maciej Michalewski

CEO @ Element. Recruitment Automation Software

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