More Than an Emergency Response Center

You may think of CHEMTREC as an emergency call center, but we offer so much more. Our spectrum of capabilities and technology enable us to minimize environmental impacts, protect people, and preserve the assets and reputations of our customers.

Assistance Before, During, and After an Emergency

With over 50 years of experience, CHEMTREC’s world-leading call center operates on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week, providing emergency response information wherever hazardous materials are manufactured, stored, transported, or used. Our call center’s 24/7 availability allows us to assist customers in a variety of different situations, not just for emergencies.

Our custom call center services fall under five categories:

• Preventive
• Notification
• Regulatory
• Medical
• General Call Center

Preventive: Addressing Issues Before They Become Problems

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Hazardous materials incidents not only impact the environment and neighboring communities, but also place your organization’s reputation at risk and carries potential liability. The cost of even a single mistake is worth the expense of smart preventive measures and that is why CHEMTREC offers several opportunities to help identify potential dangers early and avoid disastrous situations.

Our verification service employs a checklist approach to help make sure that the prescribed safety and handling procedures are always followed. Before picking up or delivering a product, the driver calls CHEMTREC and is asked a series of questions, such as:

• Is the product being delivered to the correct place?
• Does the operator have the correct fittings and equipment needed to safely dispense the product?
• Do the hazard markings on the container match the hazards for the product being dispensed?
• Has the operator verified that the product being dispensed will fit in the container it is being dispensed into?

The questions may seem obvious, but one misstep could have significant consequences.

A second type of preventive service is called pre-incident notification. Nothing bad has occurred—yet. But someone recognizes that something dangerous may happen if an issue is not addressed.

SCENARIO: A customer notices that several drums have gouges in each of them when loading for delivery. Reporting this issue can help to notify the correct personnel and identify the root cause of the issue and have it corrected before a drum gets punctured.

With this service, CHEMTREC also provides comprehensive incident reporting to help identify problem areas or trends so our customers can resolve an issue before it becomes a crisis.

Notification: Keeping Organizations Informed During an Emergency

In the event of an emergency, CHEMTREC has the technology to dispatch an email, text, or phone call with a recorded message to a select group or to the entire organization. By broadcasting to a group of individuals simultaneously, CHEMTREC can contact a small group of team leaders with detailed information and instructions on how to activate a response.

Our emergency notifications may include polling questions or require a response from each recipient to confirm that a critical message has been received and read. For example, CHEMTREC can report that 100 people were sent a notification and 92 of them received it and checked “yes.” The customer now has the intel to reach out to those who didn’t answer and verify their status. We can also set up a customized recorded greeting that can be used to inform and update staff during an ongoing crisis.

SCENARIO: During Hurricane Harvey, one customer created a recorded greeting that included updates for multiple locations in the Houston area. The affected employees had one number to call to see if their site was open or closed. Callers would receive a recorded greeting with prompts to help them identify whether the plant had reopened. CHEMTREC received over 500 calls per day on the recorded line.

Regulatory: Timely Reporting to the Authorities

If a truck overturns on a highway and products have spilled, the responding police officers must report the incident to state authorities within a certain amount of
time. Failure to report in a timely manner may result in a steep fine. To avoid this situation, CHEMTREC can submit an initial report on behalf of a customer or we can remind the on-site responders to submit the report on time.

SCENARIO: The Department of Environmental Quality in Louisiana has set strict timelines for reporting hazardous materials and dangerous goods releases. Missing these deadlines can result in fines and corrective action being taken by the state or local parish.

Medical: Enhanced Reporting for Informed Decisions

SCENARIO: Upon receiving a call from an individual who has been exposed to a hazardous material, CHEMTREC will ensure the caller does not need to call 911 immediately. Once it has been determined the caller is not in immediate danger, we will identify the product and manufacturer information and immediately connect the caller with a poison control center (PCC) for additional assistance. During this time, CHEMTREC will collect information about the product to share with the PCC and conference in necessary personnel if needed.

If your products are potentially harmful to humans or animals upon uncontrolled release, this additional service can provide immediate medical attention to the exposed party. In addition to facilitating the medical coverage, reports from the poison center will be provided upon request with information that will help identify information such as the demographics of those exposed (i.e., age and gender) and how they are getting exposed (i.e., skin exposure, eye exposure, or ingestion), and then report back any trends or issues that need to be addressed.

General Call Center: On Standby to Answer Your Customers’ Questions 24/7

Our representatives are available around the clock to respond to your customers in an emergency. We’re also available to act as an extension of a customer’s call center to assist in certain non-emergency situations.

SCENARIO: CHEMTREC works with a company that sells fuel for hydrogen vehicles. For their customers’ convenience, the company listed a single CHEMTREC phone number on their signs and on their pumps to be used during emergency and non-emergency situations. While our representatives are primarily there to handle emergency calls and help reduce risk to people and the environment; our staff is also trained to handle customer service calls, providing support for payment concerns, reports that a pump is out of fuel, or customers trying to find the next closest location.

Be Prepared with CHEMTREC’s Preventive, Notification, Regulatory, Medical, and General Call Center Services

CHEMTREC provides a variety of unique solutions designed to assist manufacturers and distributors that ship hazardous materials. We can:

• Identify and resolve issues before they become a crisis.
• Keep your staff informed and connected during an emergency.
• Comply with complex domestic and international regulations when an incident occurs.
• Gather important data to help reduce the risk of exposure.
• Improve customer service without expanding your own customer service department.

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