How Capio Recruitment scales smarter with Mercury

For Capio Recruitment, a professional services agency specialising in financial planning, insurance and legal recruitment, growth was never the challenge. Growing sustainably with the right systems in place was. Capio had reached a point where their existing tech stack was holding back their ambitions. They needed a partner who could evolve at the pace of the market and support their long-term plans. We sat down with Managing Director Chris Birtle to learn more.

Outgrowing the old Based in Bristol and operating with around 25 consultants, Capio had previously used Bullhorn, but as the business grew, limitations became more apparent. Even simple day-to-day tasks had become painful. Chris recalled one example that seems small but had a major operational impact: filtering by region. He explained, “Something that stood out for me, that we couldn't do in the old system, was just being able to filter by ‘postcode begins with’. When you say to a consultant “this is your region and you can't filter clients, you can't filter contacts, or here is a list that you can go through”, it makes it really really complicated.” During their evaluation period, Mercury stood out because every requirement Capio raised was met with a confident yes. As Chris put it, “Every question that I was throwing at Mercury was, yep we can do that.”Better efficiency with dashboards and data One of the biggest operational wins for Capio was Mercury’s dashboards. Real-time visibility into performance and sourcing activity now helps them make better commercial decisions instantly. This knowledge was pivotal to helping Capio reduce a significant business cost. When renegotiating a large multi-year LinkedIn contract, Mercury’s reporting gave Capio instant clarity on usage and ROI. Chris explained that he could see exactly how much revenue came from job applications versus LinkedIn searches. With accurate data, Capio negotiated from a position of strength, understood their true ROI and invested based on evidence rather than instinct. Improved fill rates Capio reported a clear uplift in both activity and outcomes after moving to Mercury. “We have definitely seen an improvement in fill rates. That's about 60 percent up” remarked Chris. Several features contributed to this uplift: A more powerful search Mercury Search was a turning point. Capio found it faster, more intelligent and more aligned with their recruiters' workflow. Which Chris said has a direct impact on their consultants “…that's when we started to get back to a rhythm of getting a lot more candidates in front of the right clients.”Live visibility of candidates open to work Thanks to Mercury’s integration with LinkedIn, Capio could instantly see when candidates in their database had updated their status. “It effectively turns our system into a live feed of candidates that are now open to work.” This created a huge source of high-quality leads directly from their own system. A smooth migration with exceptional support Many businesses fear CRM migrations because of past painful experiences. Chris admitted he was nervous, having previously moved systems and received little more than a few online videos. His experience with Mercury was the opposite. “The support throughout was really, really good. I can't really fault them. The help and assistance with the implementation was really, really good.” Weekly catchups, onsite visits and dedicated guidance meant Capio always felt supported. Even post go-live, responsiveness remained a standout. Adoption and change management Chris also shared valuable change management advice for other agencies planning a move:

• Do not oversell the system.

• Let people settle in before you hype advanced features.

• Involve sceptics early to bring them onside.

• Focus communication on the why before the what.

Strength in partnership Ultimately, Capio chose Mercury for its flexibility, innovation and partnership approach. The pace of product development was another key advantage. Capio has seen every early challenge addressed at pace, with product improvements arriving far faster than expected. This gave them confidence that they were investing in a platform built for the future. Capio’s journey highlights what recruitment firms gain when they pair ambition with the right technology partner. Increased fill rates, faster sourcing, better data visibility and stronger consultant performance have all helped the business scale with confidence. We let Chris sum it up in his own words “I recommend it [Mercury] if you want a CRM partner that seems to be very entrepreneurial themselves, and growing and very supportive, flexible with how you can work with them.”To view the full video, click here. Written by Daniel Fox.