Thursday, August 30, 2007

A good debtor-creditor experience

I've complained in the past about some annoying experiences with debt collection, particularly the Yellow Pages companies. I was starting to have what seemed like a similar experience, but then things changed.

In 2004 I agreed to do a free trial of a listing on lawyers -dot- com. Then I got a bill. I refused to pay and sent a letter in February of 2006. I'd get a letter or bill every once in a while, but nothing too bothersome and I ignored it.

Several months ago we switched our online legal research service from Westlaw to Lexis. Lexis owns lawyers -dot- com. I told my sales rep about the issue and was told it would be taken care of. It wasn't, but I still wasn't worried about it.

Then today I got a threatening letter delivered express mail. Now this didn't worry me, but it did make me angry. I sent an e-mail to my replacement sales rep at Lexis and also a firmly worded letter to the person who had written that letter.

Within a few hours I got a call from a Lexis manager. He apologized and assured me the disputed account had been cleared. He even followed up with an e-mail. I was very impressed and have to say that this experience added significant loyalty for me to Lexis. They were confronted with a challenging customer service moment and they rose to the challenge.

No comments: