Do Your Collection Policies Ruin Your Brand?

Earlier in the year, our van met with an untimely demise. We had just signed up with Farmer’s insurance a week before and they were great. We were very pleased with how they handled it (our insurance rates weren’t too happy, though).

About the same time, we returned our truck on lease end. Both vehicles were leased through Chrysler Financial.

The problem came when Chrysler Financial couldn’t get things right on the final payment. This is an amazing story that anyone should understand if you have to collect on any debt. I am going to tell this story in the form of what lessons should be learned.

One Point of Contact

When I first received a bill for my final payment, I thought it was for the return of my truck. That made sense to me since the insurance company paid the ill fated van off for me. The bill was for almost $1,300 in unpaid lease feeds and a vehicle turn in fee. Since I always made my payments, I sent a letter (with a check for the lease return fee) to Chrysler Financial indicating that I would only pay the turn in fee and they needed to resolve the remainder.

A few days later, I received a call from someone in San Antonio who asked for more information, which I sent. She said that she would resolve it.

A couple of weeks later, I receive a letter from someone in Detroit trying to collect on the bill. I forwarded the same documentation. The person promised to take care of it.

Two weeks later, I receive a message from someone in South Carolina. I sent them the same information and he promised to take care of it.

Over the last 5 months, I have received 12 collection notices from 5 different agencies all with different amounts owing… none of them are right. Some of the collection notices included charges that I had never seen before with no justification on why I was getting new charges.

Your Bill Might Just Be Wrong

I have spent hours on the phone, time writing letters and emails and doing the math to try to get this resolved. Finally, last week, I got a bill for $182. At least is wasn’t $1,300. I asked for verification on why I owed this since I never saw this number before and I received a summary of my account for the last six months. There is a new charge on my account for my Van for $500… the justification is a lease return fee (you know, for the vehicle that the insurance company bought).

I then received a collection notice for the other vehicle (the one I returned) for $318. Finally I realize how all the numbers add up. The $500 is the wrong fee and the $318 is applied to the wrong account.

Don’t Naturally Assume Your Customers Are Wrong

I called Chrysler today (again) to resolve the issue (again) and during the entire conversation, the “customer service rep” wouldn’t listen to anything that I was saying. She naturally assumed that I must be wrong. I have spent hours trying to resolve this (all the while, I am sure that my credit is going to pot). All of this because a company couldn’t get the billing right in the first place and someone couldn’t have taken care of this the first time.

The Moral of the Story?

There are some key things that you can do to make sure that your customers are treating properly. Make sure that clients who owe money as well your faithful customers are treated properly. Here are some tips:

• If your client challenges your bill, act quickly to provide verification of the charges.
• Provide one point of contact. Every time your client has to retell his story, your client will get more upset. Even if your bill is right, you don’t want your client to get upset.
• Don’t send your client to collections if your client is actively trying to resolve the billing issue.
• Don’t make your first bill to a client from a collection agency.
• Don’t assume that you are always right… you may have made a mistake. When you naturally assume that your customer is wrong, you won’t listen to what they have to say and therefore won’t truly resolve their concern.

If your client owes you the money and simply won’t pay after you have done the above, then you only need to decide if spending the time collecting is going to be worth it.