80% Fewer Clicks, 60% Faster Placement: How Avail Logistics Transformed Recruitment with GridMate
Challenges
- 14-16 clicks per action across multiple tools
- Average placement time stuck at 5 days
- Poor top-level visibility for leadership
- Split workflows across Salesforce, SMS tools, and Google Sheets
Solution
- Map component to source and contact candidates in a few clicks
- Kanban view aligned to ATS stages
- Salesforce-native playbook that replaces multi-tab spreadsheets
- Proof of concept before contract, followed by a fast, consultative build
- Close, responsive collaboration throughout implementation
Impact
- 60% faster time-to-hire (from 5 days to 2)
- ~80% fewer clicks per action (from 14–16 to 3)
- 5,000 candidates contacted in three clicks; access to 80,000 in the database
- Saved and grew a key client account during an urgent demand spike
- Salesforce adoption up from ~50% to 100%
Avail Logistics supplies temporary staff to the UK logistics sector, with a deep bench of HGV drivers ready for rapid deployment. As demand spiked, the team hit operational limits: too many clicks, fragmented tools, and slow time-to-hire. GridMate helped Avail consolidate workflows inside Salesforce, cutting steps dramatically and accelerating placement - all without adding headcount.
Introduction
Avail Logistics is a UK-based recruitment agency focused on logistics and transportation, specialising in supplying HGV drivers to meet urgent, fluctuating demand nationwide. Unlike traditional agencies, Avail combines technology, real insight, and a hands-on approach to make hiring faster, easier, and more cost-effective for logistics businesses. From real-time pay rate testing to proactive worker feedback and dedicated account management, Avail helps clients stay competitive, control costs, and keep operations moving in a sector where speed is everything.
Avail’s recruiters were stuck with slow, fragmented processes. Finding and contacting candidates could be done, but only after 14-16 clicks across Salesforce and third-party platforms like SMS Magic. This ate up hours of admin time and became a ceiling on productivity.
Because workflows weren’t streamlined, the team couldn’t scale without adding staff - something the business wasn’t in a position to do. That meant growth was being blocked not by demand, but by internal inefficiency.
At the leadership level, data visibility was a major barrier. Executives lacked a consolidated view of operations and had to rely on manual reporting, piecing together information from multiple sources just to understand what was happening day to day.
Meanwhile, recruiters themselves often bypassed Salesforce entirely. Instead, they managed candidates in multi-tab Google Sheets, which created version control issues and further fragmented the tech stack. The result was a 5-day average time-to-place, frustrating clients and slowing growth.
What impressed me most about GridMate was the way they listened. They took the time to really understand how we work and then built a proof of concept before we’d even signed a contract. I absolutely loved that and it was the best customer experience I’ve ever had. The implementation was simple, collaborative, and genuinely refreshing. And when we faced an urgent, high-stakes demand from our biggest client, GridMate’s solution made it possible to deliver and protect that relationship.
GridMate led with discovery and a proof of concept before any contract, which Avail called the best customer experience they’d seen. The team then implemented:
- Map Component: Compressed actions from 14–16 clicks to 3, and enabled sending a job to 5,000 candidates in one go.
- Kanban View: Provides a clear, visual representation of candidate stages within the ATS, making pipeline health transparent and highlighting the next actions required.
- Salesforce-Native Playbook: GridMate rebuilt Avail’s 10-tab Google Sheet into a single workspace in Salesforce. The playbook is a guided, stage-based workspace that consolidates candidate status, required actions, communications, and KPIs (for example cost-to-hire and time-to-hire) so recruiters and leaders can work from one source of truth.
Implementation
The initial Map build took about five days, opening streamlined access to 80,000 candidates. Delivery was highly collaborative: frequent email and call touchpoints, clear “what/why/how” run-throughs, and quick post-go-live iterations when tweaks surfaced.
With GridMate in place, Avail Logistics saw immediate and measurable improvements across efficiency, adoption, and client outcomes, including:
- Placement Speed: Time-to-place dropped from 5 days to 2, a 60% improvement that directly boosts revenue potential and client satisfaction.
- Efficiency & Scale: Recruiters reduced steps from 14-16 clicks to 3, effectively doubling throughput while maintaining spare capacity for growth. Within three clicks, the team can now broadcast jobs to 5,000 candidates and tap into a pool of 80,000.
- Adoption & Visibility: Usage shifted from ~50% Salesforce (with heavy spreadsheet reliance) to 100% in Salesforce, with the playbook centralising data and giving leaders visibility into cost-to-hire and time-to-hire.
Business Continuity and Growth: Avail faced an urgent, high-volume request from its largest client and was at risk of losing the account due to speed constraints. After implementing GridMate, the team met the surge quickly using the Map and consolidated playbook, protecting (and then growing) the relationship.
By embedding GridMate into their Salesforce instance, Avail Logistics cut inefficiencies, accelerated placements, and unlocked scalable outreach to thousands of candidates. Beyond the technology, the consultative approach and rapid delivery gave Avail the confidence to scale, strengthen client relationships, and compete more effectively in the fast-moving logistics recruitment market.
Explore more case studies
Stories of transformation. Numbers that speak volumes.
.webp)
