Question

Positive and informative messages and how they are meant to build or maintain goodwill with an audience. Business often send such letters to customers or clients to rectify a claim or complaint. This task often proves to be especially challenging when a customer is irrationally upset and seeks to vent about an issue more than resolve it. Analyze the letter below from an irate customer and follow the instructions.

What is your initial response to the the way the customer wrote the letter?

What are at least six weaknesses you identify in the letter, based on concepts learned in the lesson, and how can they be improved?

If you were the manager who received this letter, how would you specifically respond to this customer?

--------------------------------------

8/8/15

Mr. Ralph W. Epson
Regional General Manager
Romane Rentals
567 South Prentiss Boulevard
Mesa, AZ 85275

Dear Regional General Manager Ralph Epson:

You're not going to believe this horror story I have to relate to you about how incompetent the amateurish bozos are that work for you! You should fire the whole bunch at the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport branch. I'm tired of lousy service and of being charged an arm and a leg for extras that end up not functioning properly. Calling your company is useless because no one answers the phone or returns calls!

In view of the fact that my colleague and I were forced to wait for an hour for a car at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on July 7, your local branch people gave us a free navigation device. That would have been really nice in the event that the thing had actually worked, which it didn't. We advised the counter person that the GPS was broken, but it took another half hour to receive a new one and to finally start our business trip.

Imagine our surprise when the “free” GPS showed up on our bill apparently costing a whopping $180, plus tax! What came next would qualify as some dark Kafkaesque nightmare. I spent hours over the next three weeks talking to various employees of your questionable organization who swore that only “the manager” could help me, but this mysterious person was never available to talk. At this point in time, I called your Phoenix central location again and refused to get off the phone until I spoke to “the manager,” and, lo and behold, he promised to credit the cost of the GPS to our corporate account. Was my nightmare over? No!

When we checked the status of the refund on our credit card statement, we noticed that he had forgotten to refund about $60 in taxes and surcharges that had also been assessed. So much for a full refund!

Inasmuch as my company is a new customer and inasmuch as we had hoped to use your agency for our future car rentals because of your competitive rates, I trust that you will give this matter your prompt attention.

Your very upset customer,

Answer 1

What is your initial response to the way the customer wrote the letter?

The way the customer wrote the letter seems very threatening and lousy. Though the customer should have faced some problems during the service he is talking about, the letter should not mention the lousy words towards the customer service staff and other stakeholders.

It is the chance of luck that some customers may face some issues with working of devices or glitch in gadget functioning but the half an hour wait to replace the device should not have made him so upset that such a letter mentioning the inefficiency of service staff and the company is used.

The deduction of GPS usage charges may have been deducted on the credit card of the customer if possibilities are that the corporate account billing may not have been mentioned or some other reason but the same thing could have been explained in an organized manner for the company to consider.

Moreover the letter would not please anybody who would read it, and will tend people to form firm opinions about the complainant. This is not good.

The same thing could have been presented in a much structured and polite manner which would have been a better way to resolve the issues.

What are at least six weaknesses you identify in the letter, based on concepts learned in the lesson, and how can they be improved?

Based on reading the letter the following weaknesses can be noticed in it:

• The language of the letter is too lousy to be practiced in official written communication.
• There is lack of warmth and thoughtful ness in the letter.
• The salutation style in the letter is not suited to the situation.
• There is no subject mentioned in the letter.
• The conclusion should not be “Your very upset customer”, rather it should have ended with Yours sincerely or faithfully.
• The introduction paragraph of the letter is a directive sentence, which should have actually described the problem first.
• There is too much use of lousy language and exclamation marks in the letter.
• The use of spaces to separate the sections of letter is not dome much.
• There are a lot of grammar errors.

If you were the manager who received this letter, how would you specifically respond to this customer?

Though the letter is badly formatted, the response would be that the company would be looking into the matter and that we would try to resolve the matter by investigating the details. We would keep you informed about the process.

There would also be mention of advice for the customer to maintain the conduct rules while communicating and that a faulty device and half an hour wait can happen for a chance but firing the staff and doubting the services of the corporation is not a good solution to this. The customer should surely give a second try to see improvements.

Regarding the payment adjustments the request is processed but the tax implications would have to be confirmed from the accounts department after which the details could be understood and adjustments could be made, if any.