How much does the role of company recruiters impact the customer brand experience?

A recent report from Forrester Research shows that customer experience is closely tied to customer loyalty, and that the correlation between the two has been increasing. In the report, customer experience was measured by whether the company meets a customer's needs, whether the company is easy to work with, and the enjoyability of a consumer's interactions with the company. Bruce Temkin of Forrester also states that the most fundamental customer experience principle is that "every interaction creates a personal reaction, simply put, experiences are totally in the eyes of the beholder."

According to a related study from SAS Institute and Peppers & Rogers Group, only 20 percent of companies today even try to know the state of their customer experience by measuring it holistically across all channels.

Throughout my consulting career, I have been helping companies to recognize that it is the summary of all customer touchpoints, not solely advertising and marketing activities, that form that customer brand experience. I believe one major, "under-the-radar" result of this economic recession and competitive jobs market is the new and growing impact that HR (now sometimes called Talent Acquisition) is having on the company brand experience.

Over the past six months, I have interacted (or attempted) with HR/Talent Acq. recruiters at over 100 companies. Based on my own personal job search, the typical "experience" has been a general lack of acknowledgement, status or response to job applications, even sometimes when after actually going through the interview process. I miss the days of rejection letters in the mail, which at least provided closure. Likewise, I have heard very similar and frightening stories from others. In my opinion, the millions of job-seekers out there today, who may also be potential current consumers, as well as future company business leaders, vendors, partners or industry peers, are experiencing very poor interactions with many companies that will stick with them (and everyone they tell). It's too early to tell just yet the longer-term impacts on company brands from this current phenomena, but I think it's worth noting the importance and influence of company HR/Talent Acq recruiters who are on the front-lines.

Whether you have interacted with company recruiters recently or not, how much does the role of HR impact, whether positively or negatively, the customer brand experience in today's bad economy?