Maybe IRB will now have good customer service for a change. IRB has never taken into account its customers on the west coast and shuts down its operation right at 5pm East Coast time.(nothing against my fellow east coast investigators) Mike Dores and Merlin has always taken care of his west coast customers so hopefully good things will carry over in this merger. Customer service and customer friendly database has made it what it is today. Many times I have called IRB and they told me that they are east coast based and that they shut down at 5pm. When I commented to them that there are alot of West coast investigators they have said we do not have that many problems. Granted they have helped me the next day but when you are working on a case and need help and it is still normal working hours out here you do expect help like Merlin offers.

IRB has a great database which I do use consistently. But I also use LocatePlus, ChoicePoint, Tracers Information, Flat Rate, LexusNexus, etc….

Another interesting thing is that IRB several months ago took it’s pricing off of the search categories because they said they were making some changes. From what I was told through the grapevine it had more to do with they were selling the database info to law enforcement and attorneys and did not want to customers to know the price differences. This is why they have chosen to omit the prices from the search field. Granted we can go back to the main menu for the prices every time but it makes it more difficult. LocatePlus and Tracers Information still make it easy for investigators to check prices while they are still searching.

My concern is with the merger is the easy to use searches and “Ultimate Weapon” that Merlin has and maintains is going to go the same way as the pricing info with IRB? Another concern it that during the merger that the “Ultimate Weapon” will be dropped since IRB charges us to get to the screen where we can determine if there are any records or not to check.

Also the other database companies including Merlin give you the ability when you get the monthly invoice to see what searches you have been charged for. IRB however does not give you a monthly breakdown on its invoice but makes you go back to the database in order to retrieve it. This makes it difficult when you do monthly billing and you need your bookkeeper to go back into the database and get the info. I hope that this merger does not affect the simplified approach that Merlin has maintained over the years for its customers.

I think that this merger will be good since I utilize both databases but they need to take the best of both worlds and combine them. Especially the Merlin customer service (which remembers its west coast customers), the monthly billing invoice breakdown, the great “Ultimate Weapon” and IRB’s databases.

But we should always keep in the mind that with mergers work product, customer service and clients bases do change. Look at what happened when Prentice Hall, DBT and then IRSC went to Choice Point. Investigators were restricted from certain usage, monthly fees were added and eventually they did not want to do business with private investigators as much as they did law enforcement and attorneys.

This merger though may make it a potential target for Choicepoint and the other mega-aggregators to buy and fold like they have done others.