Vtiger is a CRM (customer relationship management) software that we are using to manage our leads-contacts and organise our work as a recruiting team.
Recruiter account
Every recruiter has their own account and gets leads-contacts assigned to them. They are responsible for managing the assigned contacts properly and in time manner. It’s crucial to manage the contacts in detail and update as you take actions.
Let’s start with the general menu and introduction to the essentials you are going to use on Vtiger.
In the upper left corner next to the Vtiger logo click on the square dots. A menu will open with Essentials / Marketing / Sales / Inventory / Tools. Focus on Essentials, where you have the Contacts / Calendar / Vtiger Buzz – the three basic essentials you will use in your work.
Contacts Dashboard
The contacts dashboard allows you to see all your assigned contacts as a list and have an overview of the basic info for each of them. You can see your contacts with the following:
- First name
- Last name
- Contact status
- Application-Orientation status
- Lead Source
- Mailing State
- Company
- Driver position
You can filter and arrange your contacts with each of the fields below and search the contacts that have the selected term – allowing you to find and organise your contacts and make plans for action.
Calendar
The calendar dashboard allows you to see your scheduled tasks for action by day, week, month and to organise accordingly. You can view each task, go to the contact with the task or change the task to another day.
Vtiger Buzz
Vtiger Buzz is an alerting tool that keeps you informed about:
- @ Mentions – when someone from the team mentions @ you in a contact’s comment section. In @ Mentions you can see when you were mentioned and who mentioned you, on which contact and read the comment left for you. For example: Denis Amed (30 min. ago) Ron Jon @Adam Wilson he applied again on our website.
- Activity Reminders – Reminders are here to help you remember the task you set for a contact and they alert you at the time you set to be alert at. For example: task – follow up on Ron Jon is due on 2020-01-10.
- Email Alerts – Alerting you when a contact has opened or clicked on an email you sent to him. You can see what email it is and on what link he clicked if he did so.
- Smart Alerts – Alerting you when you have new contact assigned to you and when there is no activity on a contact for a while (idle).
Contact Profile
The contact profile is the main information board for a contact that you have assigned to you.
This is where the main work is done and it keeps you informed for everything you need to know about the contact before taking the next action on your contact.
It’s good practice to see the Contact Profile in 5 information parts that inform you about the contact.
- Key Fields
- Status Fields
- Activities
- Touchpoints
- Comments
It is very important as you work on your assigned contact to manage and update the information on these 5 parts of the contact profile every time you take an action.
- Key Fields Explanation
This field gives the basic information for the lead and you make key decisions based on it, since you know the company, the position, the trailer type etc. the candidate can get hired for.
Below you can see the key fields and what information goes in each field.
| Key Fields | |
| Date created | When was the lead entered in the platform |
| Primary email | His email address |
| Assigned To | Who is currently working on the lead |
| Company | What company are you recruiting him for |
| Driver Position | What position he is interested in |
| Lead Source | Where the lead come from |
| Trailer Types | Trailer experience and interest to haul |
| Driving Experience | OTR Driving experience in years,months |
| Mailing State | Home state |
| Mailing Zip | Home zip code |
- Status Fields Explanation
The Status fields are the information we have for the present status of the lead. We can decide what to do next based on these fields.
For example, if he is not answering and is on call-3, we make the next action > try to contact him for introduction and guide him to apply if he is interested and meets the basic requirements.
In the tables below you can see all the possible status the lead can be.
| Calls (We use this when Contact status is Not Answering) | |
| Call 1 – Email+Text | After First try – auto. email+text mess. is sent |
| Call 2 | After Second try |
| Call 3 – Text | After Third try – automatic text mess. is sent |
| Call 4 – Email | After Fourth try – automatic email is sent |
| Call 5 – Text | After Fifth try – automatic text mess. is sent |
| Call 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 | After 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 try |
| Contact Status (The current status of the lead) | |
| Call Back | If he is in communication with you |
| No Response | If we did not reach him in the first try-set |
| No Response 2 | If we did not reach him in the second try-set |
| No Response 3 | If we did not reach him in the third try-set |
| Not Answering | If he hasn’t answered yet |
| Not Enough Experience | If he doesn’t have the required experience |
| Not Interested Direct | If he tells you that he is not interested |
| Not Interested Indirect | If he “disappears” not going forward to apply |
| Not Qualified | If he does not meet the hiring requirements |
| Out of Hiring Area | If he is out of the required hiring area |
| Invalid number | If the number is wrong, not in service, etc. |
| Local driving only | If he is looking for local driving (chicago area) |
| Stop Processing | Default |
| Duplicate | Default |
| Cold | If the contact is old and not reached |
| Comment Quick Note (We use this when contact status is Call Back) | |
| LVM | Left voicemail |
| VM+Text | Left voicemail +sent Text message |
| VM+ Email | Left voicemail + sent Email |
| NA | If he did not answered |
| Busy signal – sent email | If the dial tone is busy signal |
| Application sent | When we sent him the link for the full app |
| Application-Orientation Status | |
| Partial App | When he sends partial application |
| Full App | When he sends full application |
| Approved | When his full app. Is Approved |
| Orientation Scheduled | When we scheduled him for Orientation |
| Orientation Canceled | If he canceled Orientation |
| No Show | If he didn’t show up on orientation |
| Hired | If we Hired him |
- Activities explanation
Activities field is the place where you set reminders for future actions that you need to take.
The tasks that you create will show what is the next step and when you need to do it.
When you are done with the current action, you update the contact profile and set the next task.
You can use the reminder (upper right clock icon) or the three vertical dots on the activities field – add task.
- reminder (upper right clock icon) – when you click the icon you can see Create Reminder where you can name the remainder you are creating and set the time and date. (this is faster and better to use)
- Three vertical dots – Add task – when you click the add task you can see Quick Create Task where you can write the name of the task, set the date and time, set the status and choose the recruiter that needs to take the task. You can also leave a comment for the task if necessary.
- Touchpoints (Campaigns / Emails / Chats-Sms)
In this field you can see all the email campaigns, emails and sms messages that were sent to the contact. You can also see all the actions the contact has made on the emails – you can see, what email he opened, when he opened the email and if he clicked on a link.
This field is helpful for getting information that was sent to the contact and can help you decide what to send next.
- Comments
The comments field is the place where we leave important information (notes) from the communication we had over the phone and other info that is relevant to the contact and can help us out in the future to know more about the person.
It’s important to write down all the key information he provides about his job search, for example, what is his driving experience and records, any significant information about the equipment he is running or prefers to run with trailer types. If he gets approved-when he is available for orientation with the traveling information etc. If he is Not Qualified- write down why. If he does not have enough experience – how much experience he has on the date you make a note (for future contact).
Simply, you use the comments to write down every relevant information you get about the contact, every time you make an action for the candidate.
Sending emails from Vtiger
You can send emails directly from the Vtiger platform to each contact. The Vtiger platform has an email template creator and the main emails that you can send are already formed, making the process of sending an email to a contact very simple and time saving. You can view all the created templates when you go to “Email Templates” that is on the left side menu.
To send an email to a contact when you are at the contact’s profile, you need to click on the upper right small icon that looks like mail letter.
When you click the icon a “compose email” window appears where the sender (you) and receiver (the contact) is already set. You can manually write the email or choose select email template to select the template you need to send to the contact.
When you select a template you immediately have the pre-ready email subject and the entire email, but before you send the email you must check all the information inside, and make necessary changes if needed (for example: change the email subject, the introduction, explanatory information, the email signature at the bottom of the email etc.) before you click “send” and the candidate receives the email.