While it’s true that thousands of carriers use Xchange each month, we know that not all carriers are currently taking advantage of our program. Because we know first-hand the difference Xchange can make in how a business operates and obtains driver verifications, we thought it might be a good idea to cover the basics to make sure that all carriers know how it works, and how to take advantage of it.
The Problem
As you probably know, before you can hire (or contract with) a new driver, carriers have to verify all of a drivers’ former and current employers for the past several years. The exact government requirements can be found here at the FMCSA website. Historically, that process has been a huge burden for both prospective and former employers, involving a lot of paperwork and footwork to track down and obtain all of the verifications. Of course, whenever we find something that’s a huge pain in the neck for our clients here at Tenstreet, we see it as an opportunity to find a solution and make life a little easier for everyone, in this case for both clients and non-clients alike. That’s why we developed and patented Xchange.
"Xchange saves the entire trucking industry about 42,000 days of waiting each month."
The Free Solution with Big Benefits
Since we introduced the Xchange network, thousands of carriers have signed up. About 2,500 carriers provide verification data and around 28,000 have signed up to be able to receive that verification data – and for both providers and requestors, the Xchange program is completely free. While it’s not a perfect system, it’s miles ahead of how things used to be done (and unfortunately how many carriers are still doing them) via traditional fax verification requests. Each month, Tenstreet processes about 60,000 verification requests over the Xchange network. When you look at the average response times between comparing Xchange network verification requests to fax requests for verifications, the results are pretty clear.
Traditional fax requests take on average a little more than 1.4 days to complete while network requests take less than 0.7 days. That’s less than one day, and twice as fast as fax. Because verifications have usually been such a time-consuming process for both former and current employers alike, Xchange has had a huge impact on the industry as a collective already. Looking at the overall time saved, Xchange saves the entire trucking industry about 42,000 days of waiting each month. That’s just better. Better for requestors, better for providers, and better for drivers. Xchange is simply a better way to do verifications.
The How
"we want to contribute positively to the trucking industry as a whole"
The reason that Xchange is able to accomplish verification so much faster, and the reason so many carries sign up to provided their verification data via Xchange, is because it takes a time consuming and manually intensive process and automates it as much as possible. The exchange network allows carriers to upload and automatically send electronic verification requests to all of a candidate’s former employers who have registered as providers, and to receive the verifications electronically as well. The process is both faster, and involves less manual work.
With all that time and man hours save, carriers are able to complete verifications faster, at less cost, and get their new drivers hired and on the road as quickly as possible. We’ve developed this automated system as a solution because we want to contribute positively to the trucking industry as a whole, and the Xchange network not only saves participating carriers significant time and money, it is free for both provider and requestor carriers to use.
Enterprise Clients & Leveraging the Xchange Network for Recruiting
In addition to basic access and use of the Xchange network, for our enterprise clients (those who also make use of our recruiting solutions) Tenstreet has automated a lot of additional busywork that comes with verifications. As well as being able to send automatic requests electronically to carriers who participate as Xchange network data providers, for enterprise members Xchange also automates the process of sending and receiving verification faxes to carriers that don’t yet provide their verifications via the Xchange network.
"for enterprise members Xchange also automates the process..."
Enterprise members also have the ability to keep records of their verifications in one location on the Xchange system, making it much easier to provide proper documentation in case of an audit, or to discover gaps in a candidate’s listed employment history. Cases such as one where a driver’s application indicated the start date was in March, but a former employer puts a start date in late May (leaving a 2-month gap) become much easier to detect via these discrepancies when all files are stored in one system.
Last month, we even added the ability for non-network providers to respond to our Enterprise requestors via email, and to do so securely. These non-network providers still don’t have the benefits and efficiencies that come with participating in the Xchange network as registered providers, but for our enterprise clients, it is one more way Xchange makes the verification process simpler and more efficient.
"much easier to provide proper documentation in case of an audit, or to discover gaps in a candidate’s listed employment history."
Of course, as with any system that’s been used millions of times by thousands of carriers there are a lot of detailed features that have been developed over the years; the ability for providers to send us their verification data via XML, the ability to streamline the submission of termination records to Hire Right and DAC to get EHF credit, and the functionality to suggest verification requests that requestors should consider making are a few of these. All of these features contribute to making Xchange a potent and ever-adapting tool, with a lot of power under the hood.
Become a Provider
If you’re not currently a provider and would like to take advantage of all the benefits that Xchange can provide by becoming one, we’d love to add you to the network to complete DOT Verifications. If you’re already a provider and would like to learn about how to get more out of the Xchange platform, we’d love to take the time talk with you about that as well.
