2010 Renewal’s Have Been Mailed

The 2010 drug testing compliance year is just around the corner and AADT is preparing for another year of growth. We are implementing many new program enhancements through the remainder of this year and into next year, including the Free Broker Web Tools which allows truck brokers to monitor the drug and alcohol testing compliance status of subhaulers and their drivers.
The 2010 renewal printing started on September 23rd and ended September 28th.

After the printing was completed it took a team effort to make sure that all renewals included the correct Service Agreement. Stuffing the renewals in envelopes was next, not an easy task, but AADT staff again worked seamlessly together to get this done even sooner than last year. At the same time, the envelopes were being stuffed, team members started with sorting the envelopes in zip code order. While some of the staff were sorting the envelopes by zip codes, others where busy assisting clients and members who called in and of course the new clients that walk-in.

After all of this was completed, it was time to count how many renewals were going out; the grand total for 2010 was 6,413. That’s a total of about 20,000 sheets of paper (40 reams of paper) and about 40,000 printed impressions.
We finalized the renewal procedure on September 30th, and we all celebrated with a luncheon on Friday October 2nd. This annual renewal process could not have been completed as quickly and efficiently if we did not have the effort and dedication of the entire AADT team.

Thank you all for your support and commitment!

If You Need Help – Please Call! To all our clients and members, if you need help filling out your 2010 renewal forms, please give us a call Toll-free at (800) 820-9314. We’ll be more than happy to assist you.

On a separate note, we received our first completed 2010 renewal on October 1st, hooray for Dan Speth at DLS Trucking, who also happens to be a CDTOA member!

“A Call to Excellence” National Customer Service Week

Sandra Medina, Customer Service Manager

In 1992 the U.S. Congress proclaimed Customer Service Week a nationally recognized event, celebrated annually during the first full week in October. Customer Service Week is a national event devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and to honoring the people who serve and support customers with the highest degree of care and professionalism.

Expressing appreciation to our customer care staff goes a long way toward boosting morale and performance. On the third week of September of each year, AADT and CDTOA celebrates Customer Service Week to let our staff members know that we value their hard work and commitment to providing great customer service to our clients and vendors. We chose to celebrate a few weeks earlier this year because during the first week of October we are busy producing and mailing renewals.

During Customer Service Week, we also show our clients how much we appreciate their business.

This year’s national theme was “A Call to Excellence”. Several activities are planned during this week to help boost team work and to build comradery. We selected a daily theme and each staff member is given a small gift. The activities and the daily gift are chosen to reflect the daily theme. The winner of each event is awarded a prize. Customer Service tips were sent out daily to strengthen our staff’s service skills and certificates of participation are given out at the end of the week.

• Monday’s theme was “Customer Service Every Call Matters” and we played the telephone game. It brought back many childhood memories watching the teams whisper a phrase in their teammate’s ear and the last person on their team trying to repeat the phrase correctly.
  
• Tuesday’s theme was “Your Customer Service is Noteworthy”, notepads were given to the staff members as a gift. We played Internet Bingo and we even had our outside representative whose located in Northern California participate throughout the day. She actually won the Black out. Congratulations Betty Plowman!
  
• Wednesday the staff came into the office in their PJ’s and we brought in breakfast from IHOP celebrating the mid-week hump.
  
• “SMILE” was Thursday’s theme and throughout the day the staff members had to smile for our event. There were a lot of sore faces by the end of the day. One of the staff members even cut out a paper smile and taped it on her face.
  
• Friday’s theme was “Customer Service Put Us on the Map” and we stole the idea from the old faithful game of “pin the tail on the donkey” and we came up with Paste the star on the map and for those Soccer enthusiast, a soccer course was set up in the office and each member had to maneuver a soccer ball through an obstacle course.

It takes a lot of planning and hard work to put a week full of activities together, and each year the staff looks forward to Customer Service Week and every year the week turns out GREAT.

This week helps us to relax and have fun before the start of our busiest time of the year – Renewals and 4th quarter Randoms. Each year I get a lot of pleasure for all my hard work in seeing my co-workers enjoy the fruits of my labor. No company is too big or too small to incorporate Customer Service Week into their policy.

If you are interested in having your company participate in Customer Service Week which is officially the first week of October, you can log onto the following websites for help with planning your celebrations, games, contests, awards and gifts, as well as setting customer service goals and visions.

www.CSWeek.com or www.positivepromotions.com
It’s important to remember that we need to set aside time each year to celebrate the important role that customer service plays in every organization and to honor the people who continue to provide outstanding customer service. It’s time to congratulate those for a job well done.