Sorry this is long!
I am dealing with the credit controller of a large company who supplies our IT services. We have been dealing with the company for a number of years, but they have recently been taken over by another company and it has not gone well. Prior to the transfer, there were a few old invoices outstanding which related to genuine disputes where work was not satisfactory, and this lady inherited our account in July.
We have been going back and forth over the issues for several months now, and a big meeting was set up with the project managers a couple of week ago where the outstanding issues were discussed (but not resolved)
However, in addition to the long-standing issues, there have been a number of recent issues as a result of a new billing system that have taken time to resolve.
From our side, we cannot pay an invoice that is wrong or has information missing. If an invoice says "for services rendered" it needs to say what those services were and when they were supplied. We ask for the information and then hear nothing back for a couple of weeks. We ask again and eventually we get an answer and then we authorise a few more invoices. By which time there is another batch of invoices in query with exactly the same issue, etc.
I feel I have been incredibly fair and patient throughout, but this lady is now really winding me up. It's as if she has no memory of our previous conversations or emails. So much so that I am even beginning to wonder if she sends her own emails or whether she gets an automated bot to send them with a list of pre-programmed demands and threats!
Literally within a couple of days she is chasing payment of the invoices which have just been authorised. They've been in query for several weeks, so why the sudden urgency? And not only does she ask for payment for those invoices, she demands payment of all the old invoices as if she has never heard of the disputes that we have been talking about for several months. I have to then politely remind her of previous emails in which the issues were explained, etc.
Over Christmas we had a serious IT problem that meant that some key functionality was out of action for several weeks. Staff had to come in out of hours to catch up. We therefore withheld payments on the account pending resolution of the issue. That problem was finally resolved last week, and we made a payment to them.
So this morning I get an email asking for the entire account to be paid by tomorrow or our IT services will be stopped (not withstanding that we have already paid up front for those particular services).
I have spent months trying to work with this person explaining how many mistakes her company has made and how we want to move forward and resolve the issues. Now she goes and sends an email like this copying in two people I have never heard of but whom I presume are her bosses in credit control. She is treating us as if we are a random bad payer rather than a customer with a genuine grievance.
I appreciate that this is a first world problem and I am lucky to have a job, but I am absolutely livid! For her to send an email like this reflects very badly on how I have handled the matter since last summer.
I want to respond firmly without saying anything rude and I don't want to get our services cut off, but my mind is blank. Does anyone have some "diplomatic" phrases I can use?