About the campaign

Royal Mail Group needed to overhaul how it managed the recruitment of 20,000 temporary Christmas workers. In 2020 it made this process entirely digital, meaning candidates were expected to do everything online – including their application, document verification, accessing support and completing the induction process. The 2020 cycle had been unique due to many seeking work during the pandemic, so was unlikely to be repeated again.

The advice and support team were overwhelmed by incoming emails and had the additional challenge of increased competition in the logistics industry for temporary seasonal workers. It wanted to reduce email enquiries, enable candidates to access FAQs 24/7, reduce the people hours required, reduce attrition and improve the candidate experience. Meet & Engage developed a series of chatbots (Robin and Nick) that would take candidates through the attraction, selection and onboarding process.

As a result, candidates undertook thousands of chatbot conversations, with a high proportion handled digitally out of hours. This led to a significant reduction in email traffic; and most questions were handled by the chatbots. The majority of candidates enjoyed the welcome content and felt more prepared for their first day. Attrition reduced and the average number of visits to the portal went up impressively.