Escot Bus Lines
Founded in 1983 in St. Petersburg, Florida by Lou and Diane Scott, Escot Bus Lines is a family-owned charter bus company. The fleet began as two mini-buses providing daily shuttle service to Tampa Bay area attractions. Eventually, Escot Bus Lines grew to become a leader in the transit and motorcoach industry, providing service throughout North America. The company prides itself on its well-maintained, and fully equipped fleet as well as its well-trained drivers that provide excellent quality of service.
Upholding High Standards
Since Doug Domanchuk’s time serving in the armed forces, he’s prided himself on upholding high standards of safety and service for himself and his team. That’s why when he was offered his current role as the Director of Safety and Risk Management at Escot Bus Lines four years ago, Doug knew his expertise would align perfectly. “There was a learning curve at first but nothing that I couldn’t transfer my knowledge over to.” In his current position, he manages everything from OSHA compliance and safety regulations to driver permitting and insurance.
Beyond maintaining Escot Bus Lines’ spotless safety reputation, one of his key responsibilities is to bring on new drivers for their fleet. Working with the company’s Director of HR, Doug researches and evaluates new avenues for recruiting drivers.
Application Volume Surged
One of the benefits of GoToro for Doug has been the addition of fully managed Facebook campaigns. Doug says, “My process has totally changed for the better.” With his Account Manager available throughout the day, he has been able to make quick updates to their campaign to allocate budget where their hiring managers are feeling the need. The results from the first couple of months blew past Doug’s expectations. Whereas previous job boards and posting sites were getting very little response, GoToro provided Escot Bus Lines an application volume he never knew they could have.
“I can’t explain enough how amazed I was with the service. I looked at a 7-week graph of our applications and saw that we had over 250 applicants in that time!”
In addition to an increase in applicant volume from GoToro, Doug also saw an increase in applicant quality. He believes this improvement was due to two distinct factors of the platform. First, unlike other bulk job boards, GoToro allows Doug to shift his hiring focus as needed by adjusting geotargeting, application requirements, and job type with a single call to the GoToro team. “GoToro streamlined the whole hiring process, we can call within minutes and make a change.” Plus, the platform’s “pre-screening” application feature allows Doug’s team to only spend time contacting the top qualified candidates.
GoToro’s job advertising campaigns performed so well that Doug shared that Escot Bus Lines finally began to achieve their hiring goals. “We went from struggling continuously with driver recruitment to it becoming an afterthought with GoToro.”
Staying Selective with Applicants
Doug views bus drivers as similar to airline pilots: they require specific certifications and endorsements, they are responsible for the transportation of people, and they must employ high customer service skills. However, with such a low candidate volume before using GoToro, Doug feared that Escot Bus Lines may have to lower their driver standards. “If you don’t have enough drivers to cover, you may have to compromise your standards to fill the team which is something I’m totally against.”
“I can’t say enough how much it’s changed. GoToro has revolutionized our driver recruitment.”
Since working with GoToro, Doug has a much wider pool of candidates to choose from, which allows him to be more selective. Instead of rushing to fill an open position, Doug can target more well-rounded drivers that understand the entire business of driving a bus without compromising Escot Bus Lines’ high standards.