Playbook, recruitment agency
A refund here is a clause, and usually not money
Nobody in this trade calls it a refund. A client whose new hire walked out after three weeks is asking about a rebate or a replacement, and those are not alternatives the client picks between: most terms put a replacement first and money only where that fails. The scale usually tapers week by week, and the conditions attached to it are the part nobody reads until precisely this moment.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for refund requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The fee was invoiced against a start date, so by the time this question arrives the money has normally been paid, and the client is asking for something back rather than declining to pay something.
- Rebates commonly slide, returning a decreasing proportion as the weeks pass, so the answer changes with the day the person left while the client is working from a memory of the headline period.
- Most terms put a replacement search ahead of any money, which means a client demanding a refund is often entitled to something else first and has no idea that is the sequence.
- Conditions sit on the clause that have nothing to do with the candidate: the original invoice being settled within terms, the reason for leaving, a redundancy, a role that changed after the offer. Any of them can remove the rebate entirely.
How it arrives
- the person you placed left after two weeks do we get a refund
- what is your rebate period
- does the rebate go down the longer they stay
- do you replace them or give the money back
- we made them redundant does the rebate still apply
- we paid your invoice late does that change anything
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The rebate scale, written week by week | The proportion returned at each stage rather than only the headline period. Clients remember one number and the scale is what actually applies, so publishing the steps ends the argument before it starts. |
|---|---|
| Whether a replacement comes first, and on what terms | Whether the client has to accept a replacement search before any money, how long you have to run it, and what happens if they decline. This ordering is the most misunderstood sentence in the whole document. |
| Every condition attached to the rebate | Settlement of the original invoice within terms, the leaving reasons that are excluded, the notification deadline. Publish them beside the period, because a client meeting a condition for the first time while asking for money treats it as an invention. |
| How and by when a claim has to be notified | Who to tell, in what form and within how many days of the person leaving. Notification windows are short, and a client who misses one loses a rebate they were otherwise straightforwardly entitled to. |
The reply
Sorry to hear that. What applies is in our terms rather than anything I can work out: the rebate runs on a scale that reduces with the time worked, and in most cases we look to provide a replacement before any money is returned [1]. There are conditions attached, including telling us within a set number of days of somebody leaving, so the useful thing right now is to let us know rather than to wait [2]. I cannot see the placement or say what you are entitled to. Leave your name, an email and who it concerns and a consultant will go through it today.
It puts the notification deadline in front of the argument, because a client who spends a week deciding whether to be annoyed can lose the rebate while deciding. Saying the replacement comes first sets the expectation before a consultant has to defend it. And it refuses to apply the scale, which needs facts it does not have.
Where it stops
The trigger. The client names a placement, a leaving date or an amount, or asks whether they qualify for a rebate.
I cannot tell you what applies to this placement, and there is a time limit on letting us know somebody has left. Leave your name, an email and who it concerns and a consultant will come back to you today.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a rebate applies, or how much of one, because it turns on dates, conditions and a decision that is not the assistant's to make.
- Never say money will be returned where your terms provide for a replacement first.
- Never discuss why the person left, since that concerns a named individual and the agency has heard one side of it at most.
- Never say a condition will be waived, because that is a commercial concession and the client will hold you to it for the rest of the relationship.
Questions
- Should the conditions really sit on the website?
- Yes, next to the period. A client who discovers a condition halfway through asking for money assumes it was invented for the occasion. The same sentence read months earlier, while they were choosing an agency, is simply a term.
- Can it start the claim?
- No. It cannot open a case, check dates or process anything. It can tell the client the notification matters and collect the details, so the window does not close while nobody is looking at the message.
- Candidates ask about refunds too. What are they asking?
- Almost always about money taken somewhere else, for a course or a certificate. The answer is that this agency does not charge candidates, then a handover, because a question like that usually means somebody has already been charged by someone.
Keep reading
- Everything for a recruitment agencyTwo audiences on one website. Process, payroll and compliance questions are answerable, application outcomes never are.
- Handling refund requests in generalA refund question is really about eligibility and timing. What to index, what the reply may promise, and where it has to reach a person.
- Two things called an appointment, one of them not yoursWalk in or by appointment, which branch, and why an interview is never the agency's to arrange. Booking answers without any diary.
- Application status questions, and the answer that is not a statusThe most asked question a consultancy gets and the one it cannot answer in a widget. What to say instead so the candidate stops chasing.
- Candidate registration, explained before anybody picks up the phoneRegistration steps, right to work documents and what happens before a first shift, answered at the hour candidates actually ask.
Try it on your own material
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