Word of mouth is a powerful tool for recruiting and when a fleet is looking to fill an empty seat, what your current employees say can have a critical impact.

Stay Metrics, a provider of driver retention tools, wanted to investigate the reasons that drivers would consider recommending their fleet to other drivers. Specifically, the company conducted research identifying the top five reasons why drivers will make referrals within the first 90 days on the job.

“Attracting new drivers is difficult across the trucking industry, making referrals from current drivers more important than ever,” said Allyson Smith, a Stay Metrics data analyst who compiled the list. “The results of our latest research project highlight the aspects of work that most influence a driver’s decision to refer their carrier to another driver.”

To do this, Stay Metrics analyzed responses from all questions in its Early Experiences Survey, one of several driver lifecycle survey products the company administers for trucking clients that use its Stay Ahead platform. The driver responses to survey questions were compared to their Net Promoter Score, a measurement of company loyalty that directly asks drivers how likely they are to recommend their current carrier.

The top five questions identified as having the most influence on drivers’ willingness to recommend their carrier (or not) came from responses to the quesiton:

“How satisfied are you with…”:

1. The compensation you receive from your carrier?

2. Your carrier’s wait time/detention pay?

3. The number of miles you typically drive in a week?

4. Your communication with your carrier?

5. Your level of work-related stress?

As you might expect, the first three questions all relate to pay and workload, while the fourth and fifth relate to communication on a driver’s work experience.

“The way these three issues relate to one another suggests that the overall system of work and the communication that surrounds it are the main catalysts for drivers’ willingness to recommend their carriers,” said Tim Hindes, co-founder and chief executive officer of Stay Metrics. “Accurate communication by carriers, especially about pay, is essential to positively impact driver opinions.”

The survey also compiled a word cloud to identify how often drivers mentioned specific words in their survey comments. The results further implicated the importance of communication as a key factor in reducing the number of drivers who were not willing to recommend their carrier to other drivers.

Positive words like “Good”, “Work” and “Great” were most often used by drivers who were likely to recommend their employer, while words like “Pay”, “Money” and “Miles” were most often used by drivers who were unlikely to recommend their employer.

The full report is available for free through on the Stay Metrics website, which reveals the top 5 reasons drivers recommend their carriers after 90 days, along with the best recommendations by Stay Metrics analysts for how to maximize results.