How to Handle More Clients With the Same Size Team

Growing your client base is exciting, until your team starts feeling the pressure. More clients usually mean more drug test orders, more emails, more billing, more scheduling, more reporting, more customer service requests, and more administrative work. For many Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) and Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs), growth can quickly create a difficult question:

Do we need to hire more people just to keep up?

Not necessarily. The right technology can help your existing team manage more clients, process more orders, and provide better service without increasing headcount at the same pace. At US Gateway, we believe growth should come from improving efficiency, not simply adding payroll.

Growth Can Expose Inefficient Processes

When a company is small, manual processes may seem manageable.

An employee might:

• Log into one laboratory portal to order a test
• Search for a collection site
• Send information to the donor
• Track whether the test was completed
• Check for results
• Update the employer
• Enter information into another system
• Prepare billing
• Respond to follow-up questions

When you only have a small number of clients, those extra steps may not seem like a major problem. But as your company grows, those same processes are repeated hundreds or thousands of times. Eventually, your team can become overwhelmed, not because you have too many clients, but because you have too many manual processes.

The key to handling more clients with the same size team is to reduce the amount of work required for each transaction.

1. Automate Repetitive Tasks

One of the easiest ways to increase capacity is to identify tasks your employees repeat every day.

Ask yourself:

Does an employee really need to perform this task manually every single time?

Examples might include:

• Entering the same information into multiple systems
• Sending routine notifications
• Searching for collection sites
• Tracking order statuses
• Managing random selections
• Preparing invoices
• Updating client records
• Pulling reports

Every task you automate gives time back to your team. That time can then be used to support additional customers without immediately adding another employee.

2. Keep Your Operations in One Place

Switching between different systems costs more time than many businesses realize. Employees may need one platform for ordering drug tests, another for occupational health services, another for billing, another for background screening, and several different laboratory portals. A centralized platform can dramatically simplify the workflow, reducing unnecessary administrative work.

US Gateway helps TPAs and CRAs manage multiple parts of their operations from one system, including drug and alcohol testing, occupational health services, random testing programs, billing, reporting, and other administrative functions. The fewer systems your employees need to manage, the more work they can complete during the day.

3. Reduce Time Spent Searching for Collection Sites

Collection-site scheduling can become a major time commitment.

Employees may need to determine:

• Which collection site is closest
• Which laboratory the site works with
• Whether the site performs the required service
• Whether multiple services can be completed at the same location
• Whether another location would be more convenient

Doing that manually for every order adds up quickly. US Gateway's technology is designed to help simplify the process of identifying appropriate collection locations. Instead of spending valuable staff time searching through directories and different systems, technology can help streamline the scheduling process.

4. Stop Entering the Same Information More Than Once

Duplicate data entry is one of the biggest productivity killers in any business. If an employee enters client or donor information into one system and then has to re-enter it into another, your company is paying someone to perform the same job twice. It also increases the chance of errors.

The ideal workflow is simple:

Enter information once and allow integrated systems to communicate with each other.

For TPAs and CRAs, integrations can make an enormous difference in how many accounts an employee can effectively manage. US Gateway is designed to integrate with major drug testing laboratories and industry platforms, helping reduce unnecessary manual work between systems.

5. Give Clients Access to Information

Some of the most time-consuming customer service requests are also the simplest.

For example:

• "Did my employee complete the test?"
• "Is the result available?"
• "Can you send me that report again?"
• "What is the status of this order?"
• "Where can I find this information?"

Multiply those questions by hundreds of clients and they can consume a significant amount of employee time. 

Providing clients with access to information through technology can reduce routine calls and emails. Your employees can then spend their time helping customers with more complex needs instead of constantly answering basic status questions.

Better visibility can mean better service for the client and less administrative work for your team.

6. Automate Random Program Management

Random drug and alcohol testing programs can require a great deal of administrative work, particularly as the number of employer groups grows. Managing employee lists, selections, consortiums, testing periods, and reporting manually can become increasingly difficult. 

When random testing programs can be managed through a centralized system, one employee may be able to oversee significantly more employer accounts than they could using spreadsheets and manual processes. This is exactly the type of scalability growing TPAs need.

7. Make Billing Easier

Every new client creates more financial administration.

More orders mean:

• More invoices
• More payments
• More account reconciliation
• More client billing questions
• More transaction records

Without automation, a growing client base can quickly create the need for additional billing staff. Integrating billing into your operational workflow can reduce this burden.

The more billing and payment processes that can happen automatically, the less administrative time your staff needs to spend managing individual transactions. Your revenue can grow without your accounting workload increasing at the exact same rate.

8. Build Standardized Processes

Growth becomes much harder when every employee handles customers differently.

• One person may keep notes in a spreadsheet.
• Another may use email folders.
• Someone else may maintain their own reminder system.

That may work when a company is small, but it becomes difficult to manage as the business grows. Standardized workflows help ensure that every client moves through the same process.

Technology can help create structure around:

• Ordering
• Scheduling
• Notifications
• Reporting
• Billing
• Random testing
• Occupational health services
• Client communication

When processes are consistent, employees spend less time trying to figure out what to do next. They can simply follow the workflow.

9. Increase Revenue From Existing Clients

Handling more business does not always mean adding more clients. It can also mean doing more for the clients you already have.

A company that currently uses you only for drug testing may also need:

• Alcohol testing
• Physical exams
• Occupational health services
• Random program management
• Background screening
• Compliance-related services

Adding services can increase revenue per client without requiring the same sales effort needed to acquire an entirely new account. With a centralized system, your team may be able to manage those additional services without creating entirely new administrative processes. That means more revenue from the same customer relationships and the same team.

10. Let Employees Focus on Customers Instead of Administration

Your employees are one of your most valuable resources.

Their time should be spent on activities where people provide the most value:

• Building client relationships
• Solving problems
• Following up with prospects
• Retaining customers
• Selling additional services
• Providing excellent customer service

They should not spend most of their day copying information between systems or performing repetitive tasks that technology can handle. Automation doesn't replace the importance of your team. It makes your team more productive.

Measure Productivity Differently

Instead of only asking:

"How many employees do we need?"

Consider asking:

"How many clients can each employee effectively support?"

If better technology allows one employee to manage twice as many accounts while maintaining excellent service, that can fundamentally change the economics of your business. Your company can increase revenue without increasing payroll at the same rate. That is what scalable growth looks like.

Your Next 100 Clients Shouldn't Require 10 More Employees

Growth should be exciting, not something your team fears because it means more paperwork and longer days. The goal is to create an operation where additional volume can move through your business efficiently. When you automate repetitive tasks, integrate your systems, improve client visibility, streamline billing, and centralize your workflows, your existing team can accomplish much more.

Instead of continually solving capacity problems by hiring more people, you can solve them with better processes and better technology.

Grow Your Business With US Gateway

US Gateway is built for TPAs and CRAs that want to grow efficiently. By centralizing critical workflows and helping automate administrative tasks, US Gateway can help your team manage more clients, more orders, and more services without increasing overhead at the same pace.

The result?

More capacity. More revenue. Less administrative work.

Before hiring your next employee, ask a different question:

What could your current team accomplish with a better system?

Ready to See How US Gateway Can Help You Scale?

Schedule a demonstration of US Gateway and learn how your TPA or CRA can streamline operations, reduce repetitive work, and handle more clients with the team you already have.