The following Customer Service Tip of American Express (its retail arm) comes to us via a youngish California employee of ours, and valued Amex cardholder (since 2001). She will remain, for good reasons, nameless.
The CS tip? The next time your firm’s client–let’s say Walmart; however, it could be any valued publicly-traded outfit for which you have worked for at least a decade–is due to an oversight more than three (3) days late paying your firm’s invoice, by all means, do the following:
1. Call the Walmart GC, in-house lawyer or other Walmart exec your firm answers to in Bentonville, Arkansas, preferably on a Monday afternoon, around 4:45 EST, preferably the day after Easter Sunday, after Super Bowl Sunday, after a long weekend or as soon as Mardi Gras is over.
2. Don’t leave a voice message. Keep calling.
3. The exact moment the in-house or client exec answers the phone, ask your long-time client rep who approves your invoices “Do you mind terribly, _________ [use rep’s first name], if my assistant Nadine and I tape-record this conversation? We’re collecting a debt.” Then talk.
4. Important Note: Be poised to replace Walmart as an institutional client–perhaps with its Visa or Mastercard counterpart–as soon as practicable. Just in case.
American Express. We Can’t Help It. We’re Assholes.