Complaint Letter Assignment Each student will be responsible for writing a letter of complaint to a company or organization regarding a recent encounter (whether real or imagined) with a customer service representative from that company. The letter must carefully explain several things: 1. When did this incident take place (day, time)? 2. What was the purpose of your encounter (returning a product, trying to correct a bill)? 3. What was the content of your conversation? What were you asking for? How did he/she respond? 4. What was the csr’s tone when he/she first spoke with you? Did the csr answer the telephone (come to the counter) with a bad attitude? Were you initially treated well? 5. What was the eventual outcome of your encounter? 6. Compliment the company. Tell the reader how long you have been a customer and (quickly) why you have chosen to use their services in the past. 7. Explain what you hope to accomplish by writing the letter. 1. 8. Thank him/her for his/her time and indicate whether or not you would like a response and how you would like to receive the response (email, mail, telephone). 9. Use all parts of a professional letter, including the following: Date, Sender’s Address, Inside Address, Salutation, Body, Closing, and Signature. The letter should be no more than 2 pages long and should use Standard American English and proper grammar and punctuation. You MUST take your completed letter to the Writing Center for help with your editing and revision. Please have someone from the WC sign your paper for verification. To complete this assignment you will need to do limited research. You must find: 1. The proper name and address of the company 2. The name and title of the person to whom you will address your letter This information can often be found on product packages or on the internet. Final Notes: 1. Your letter should be written in a standard font (Times New Roman) and should be single spaced. 2. In a business letter, unlike college essays, you should not indent your paragraphs. You should simply put ONE extra space between paragraphs to distinguish one from another. 3. Make sure to SIGN your letter in the appropriate place. (see sample) A full draft of this letter will be due on March 12th. Your final draft is due on March 24th. Business Letters have a very unique format (one that will be different from what you will use for your formal essays): Single space your body paragraphs (without indenting) and double space between them to indicate a change in idea. **See the attached sample letter.
Key Letter Writing Tips
1. Keep it short and to the point. Letters involving business (personal or corporate) should be concise, factual, and focused. Try to never exceed one page or you will be in risk of losing your reader. A typical letter page will hold 350 to 450 words. If you can’t get your point across with that many words you probably haven’t done enough preparatory work. If necessary, call the recipient on the phone to clarify any fuzzy points and then use the letter just to summarize the overall situation. 2. Focus on the recipient’s needs. While writing the letter, focus on the information requirements of your audience, the intended addressee. If you can, in your “mind’s eye” imagine the intended recipient seated across a desk or boardroom table from you while you are explaining the subject of the letter. What essential information does that person need to know through this communication? What will be their expectations when they open the letter? Have you addressed all of these? 3. Use simple and appropriate language. Your letter should use simple straightforward language, for clarity and precision. Use short sentences and don’t let paragraphs exceed three or four sentences. As much as possible, use language and terminology familiar to the intended recipient. Do not use technical terms and acronyms without explaining them, unless you are certain that the addressee is familiar with them. 4. Re-read and revise it. Do a first draft of the letter, and then carefully review and revise it. Put yourself in the place of the addressee. Imagine yourself receiving the letter. How would you react to it? Would it answer all of your questions? Does it deal with all of the key issues? Are the language and tone appropriate? Sometimes reading it out loud to one’s self, can be helpful. When you actually “hear” the words it is easy to tell if it “sounds” right, or not. 5. Check spelling and grammar. A letter is a direct reflection of the person sending it, and by extension, the organization that person works for. When the final content of the letter is settled, make sure that you run it through a spelling and grammar checker. Sending a letter with obvious spelling and grammar mistakes looks sloppy and unprofessional. In such cases, the recipient can’t really be blamed for seeing this as an indication as to how you (and your organization) probably do most other things. Above all else, your goal in all letter writing, regardless of the subject, should be to keep it short, factual, and to the point. Don't write it more than one page in length, unless there is some compelling reason to make it longer. Studies have shown that busy business people do not like to read beyond the first page. If your letter is longer, there is a good chance it will be dumped in a "read later" pile, which often ends up never getting read. Only exceed 1 page when absolutely necessary.
700 College Drive Henderson, NV 89002 702-262-7820 January 8, 2008 Chef AAAAA XXXXXX 1055 E Tropicana Avenue Las Vegas, NV 89119 Dear Chef XXXXXX: My husband and I live in (THE NEIGHBORHOOD) and have eaten at THE RESTAURANT twice since October. During our first visit, the evening was perfect. The wait staff was professional; the atmosphere was very welcoming, and the food was exceptional. Because we enjoyed ourselves so much during our first visit, we chose to spend New Year’s Eve at THE RESTAURANT as well. However, this time, our experience was much different, as the staff was uniformed and unprofessional, the atmosphere was almost hostile, and the food was nauseating. We made our reservation two weeks in advance for 5:00 on Monday, December 31, 2007. Three days prior to that date, the restaurant called, asking us to move our reservation time to 4:00 because they planned to open early to accommodate the overwhelming number of guests. When we arrived at 3:50, the hostess told us that the restaurant would not be open for another 10 minutes and we would have to wait in the casino until then. We were not allowed to sit at the bar, even though we could clearly see two waiters seated at the bar talking to the bartender. Once we were finally seated, we were the only guests in the restaurant for half an hour. We sat next to the appetizer station and were in the center of the wait staff’s conversations for 30 minutes. They discussed sports and personal topics and yelled back and forth across the restaurant while they set the tables and folded napkins. Our waitress, obviously new to the restaurant, did not know the specials and, when she asked another waiter, was ignored until he finished his conversation. All of this took place in clear view of our table. Worse than the service, the food was unacceptable, and the waitress rarely returned to the table to ask about it. As for the main courses, my pasta was perfect, but my husband’s lamb was served well done even though he ordered it to be prepared medium. Additionally, the vegetables that accompanied the lamb were salty and inedible. He would have sent it back if the waitress would have returned to the table. We thought the night might be salvaged by dessert. I ordered the molten cake and my husband ordered a fruit dish, both of which we have ordered at THE RESTAURANT in the past. While his fruit was wonderful, the cake was solid on the inside. It was cold and the chocolate had congealed inside the cake. Our waitress never returned to the table, so we simply paid our check and left.
From the behavior of the staff to the quality of the food, THE RESTAURANT was a great disappointment on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps the inattention to detail resulted from the early reservation and the fact that we were the only guests in the restaurant for the first half of our meal, or maybe there was insufficient staff supervision that evening. Whatever the reason, our $190.00 dinner felt like a waste of time and money. We live very close to the resort and eat at ALTERNATE RESTAURANTS A AND B about once a month. For New Year’s, we had hoped to try something different. As a chef, you surely know that one unsatisfactory visit to a restaurant can deter guests from coming back. That is the case here. We feel we wasted our money on New Year’s Eve. Best wishes to you and THE RESTAURANT. I hope your staff can learn from their mistakes and that you are able to address some of these issues to ensure no other guests are alienated. Sincerely,
Elizabeth Henkel