One Secret to Good Customer Service? Don't Place Blame.

I just had a pretty negative experience. I did a small amount of freelance work for a company over the span of five days, decided the experience was not what I was looking for, and bowed out. I expected to be paid for the work I completed. I submitted the information requested for payment (actually, I submitted the information before I ever did any work), yet over a month later I still hadn't been paid.

Reaching out to my contact after two weeks, I was told she didn't know why I hadn't received payment, but that she would check into it and get back to me. I waited a week, and followed up with her again. She told me to contact the owner. I did. No response. I contacted her after another week. She apologized, and said she'd contact him directly about the situation immediately. After yet another week, I sent a final message. I said that unless I received a response by the end of the following weekend, I would broadcast my experience over my Twitter account - which has quite a few HR professionals following it. 

That final message prompted a cordial response from the owner. His response, although polite, placed the blame directly in my lap for the lack of payment. If they say I didn't submit payment information, that's fine. What is infuriating and unacceptable is that they could have said that in reply to my first contact attempt. He also took issue with how I contacted their company. As I told him in a final response, it is not unreasonable for me to contact the one and only person who has ever responded to any communication I sent this company. 

I also received a response from the main contact, the one who had been promising to follow up for weeks: 

"First of all, it is incredibly unprofessional to finish a request with a threat, ESPECIALLY in light of the fact that we are a very new company, not even launched. I understand your frustration. However, everyone else was paid for their week of work- YOU did not send in your info in a timely fashion as requested of you. That being said, obviously XXXX and I both are extremely busy and your messages to him were probably lost ................ I've just spoken to him again and he said he didn't receive anything from you but will pay you the $ you are owed if you have a paypal we can send it to. So please respond with your paypal email address and we will get that out to you."

All of these responses simply solidified my decision to part ways with this company. Instead of taking care of a pretty simple issue, they deflected the blame back to me in an antagonistic tone. If they had simply said, "We're sorry, we don't have the information we need to process your payment," I would have submitted it again. I would not have thought much about it - because they are a new company, and are trying to get their systems in order. It would not have taken much time or effort on their end, nor mine. Better yet, they could have reached out to me when they processed the payments (after all, everyone except me apparently got paid). If they didn't realize there was still a payment outstanding, what does that say of their accounting practices? The experience left a bad taste in my mouth, and I will go out of my way to avoid this company. I certainly will never recommend them to anyone. I sincerely hope they treat their customers better than their freelancers, or they will not be in business very long.