both the account provider and with each employee entering the collection facility. Everyone is treated like a valued customer. This is a competitive level of performance, and you have earned business by reputation, often enticing clients away from your competition. At the very top of the pyramid are those
who have truly achieved excellence in the profession. Tey are the collectors who are proactive about training, stringent in their adherence to an exacting process, have performed thousands or even tens of thousands of collections. Tey remain calm when confronted by openly hostile drivers sent for reasonable suspicion testing and they are kind but firm with the pleading of a sobbing pilot who is hiting rock botom. Tey remain commited to the mission of safety in the family, workplace, and public and they instill trust with their clients and customers with fair and consistent service. Collectors in this elite position acknowledge
mistakes, are resolution oriented, and are proactive in serving the client. In fact, they always atempt to view the service from the client’s perspective. A shortcut in the process of completing the test may save a collector a few seconds, but it can cost the client hours in corrective requirements, and top collection site professionals understand this. Tey guard their customers’ privacy and protect their resources. Tese collectors become top trainers and have memorized 49 CFR Part 40, can calibrate and trouble-shoot numerous breath- testing devices, and stay current on changing technology, trends, and regulations that affect their business and their customers’ business. When a client sees you not just as a
vendor or service agent but as a partner in their safety program, as a member of their working team, and as a reliable and valued asset to their botom line, you have achieved compliance in procedures and excellence in service. At every performance and service tier,
the collection itself can be completed. Te competitive landscape tells us that
10 datia focus
many players can simply get a specimen to a laboratory; that is hardly a challenge. However, the merely competent collector will forever lose business to the advanced collector who may have a beter sales pitch and a deeper roster of impressive accounts. Te advance collector will lose business to the top-tier professional when the advanced collector fails to properly train or oversee his or her hired collection staff, and is unable to separate themselves personally from the client complaint or the problematic test outcome. Oſten, losing a client can mean the loss of a multi-year contract, and convincing a client to return may require waiting for your competitor to lose their client.
Focusing on compliance is the first step Apologetic memoranda and golf games with customers won’t alleviate procedural errors and their negative toll on your customers’ time. Slow down the collection process from the moment the employee enters the facility, scrutinize the details of the paperwork (memorize the front and back of a federal CCF or ATF) and protocols preferred by the account and confront errors with honesty when they arise. Treat customers with dignity and maintain a service-oriented ethic as a daily goal and overall mission. All of these will require discipline in the immediate term, but will gain you life-long clients, more secure profits, and the longevity of value throughout your career. Compliance is the inarguable foundation
to excellence. Customer service, public safety, reputation and job satisfaction are empty without a grounded fundamental commitment to the steps required by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). While these steps may overwhelm the beginner, the top professional collectors use them to their advantage. Te amateur will fear disputes and challenges, constantly worrying about what will arise during an audit or examination, while the professional is not fazed by scrutiny. Tey are confident
and assured that adherence to the procedures gives them the backing of a history of legally veted protection against challenge. You do not need to own your own business
to become a top-flight collector. Start by reading the regulations and closely reading each step on the testing forms. Understand the steps and what the intent and protections are inherent in the specimen’s chain of custody. You may face challenges and internal corporate resistance when you realize that your employer-provided training was flawed. You may also be under pressure to hurry collections through and to minimize the time needed to complete a test. Trainers can be highly territorial and resistant to these critiques, but remaining on the correct side of the process is the obligation of the professional collector. By achieving a level of procedural and
service excellence, additional opportunities for top collectors may become available. Create and maintain an active network of other collection site professionals, offer to train beginners, and perform outreach for clients when needed. You are the fulcrum on which entire drug and alcohol testing programs leverages. It is you who defends our infrastructure and it is you who protect our families and communities from the devastation of impairment-based accidents, injuries or deaths.
George Gilpatrick has been the Managing Partner for Cahill Swift and its performance of federal contracts and private sector contracts. George is a team leader for the Federal
Transit Administration (FTA) Drug and Alcohol Compliance Audit Program, and the Program Manager of the Clandestine Collection Site In- spection Program. In addition, he is the program strategist and the firm’s senior national trainer for the DOT. Since 2000, George has trained and led federal inspection teams, has trained in- vestigators, and has taught process control and regulatory compliance for thousands of public and private employees across the country.
Spring 2016
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