Text 2 Replying to letters of complaint

Opening   Acknowledge that you have received the complaint, and thank your customer for informing you.

—Thank you for your letter of 6 August informing us that ...

—We would like to thank you for informing us of our accounting error in your letter of 7 June.

—We are replying to your letter of 10March in which you told us that ...

Asking for time to investigate the complaint

Sometimes you cannot deal with a complaint immediately, as the matter needs to be looked into. Do not leave your customer waiting but tell them what you are doing straight away. In this case, an email or fax message is
appropriate as the customer then knows immediately that you have received the complaint and are doing something about it.

—While we cannot give you an explanation at present, we are looking into the problem and will contact you again shortly.

—As we are sending out orders promptly, I think these delays may be occurring during transit. I shall get in touch with the haulage contractors.

—Would you please return samples of the items you are dissatisfied with, and I will send them to our factory in Düsseldorf for tests.

Explaining the mistake If the complaint is justified, explain how the mistake occurred but do not blame your staff. You employed them, so you are responsible for their actions.

—The mistake was due to a fault in one of our machines, which has now been corrected.

—There appears to have been some confusion in our addressing system, but this has been sorted out.

— It is unusual for this type of error to arise, but the problem has now been dealt with.

Solving the problem Having acknowledged your responsibility and explained what went wrong, you should put matters right as soon as possible, and tell your customer that you are doing so.

—We have now checked our accounts and find that we have been sending you the wrong statement due to a confusion in names and addresses. The database has been adjusted and there should be no more difficulties.Please contact us again if a similar situation arises, and thank you again for pointing out the error.

—The paintwork on the body of the cars became discoloured because of a chemical imbalance in the paint used in spraying the vehicles. We
have already contacted our own suppliers and are waiting for their reply. Meanwhile we are taking these models out of production and calling in all those that have been supplied.

—The fabric you complained about has now been withdrawn. The fault was in the weave of the cloth, which was due to a programming error in the weaving machines. This has now been corrected and replacement fabric will be sent to you.

Rejecting a complaint If you think the complaint is unjustified, you can be firm but polite in your answer. But even if you deny responsibility, you should always try to give an explanation of the problem.

—We have closely compared the articles you returned with our samples and can see no difference between them. Therefore, in this case we are not willing either to substitute the articles or to offer a credit. Our factory has now inspected the unit you returned last week, and they inform us that the circuits were overloaded. We can repair
the machine, but it will be necessary to charge you as incorrect use of the unit is not covered by our guarantee.

Closing    It is useful when closing your letter to mention that the mistake, error, or fault is an exception, and it either rarely or never happens. You should also, of course, apologize for the inconvenience your customer experienced.

—In closing we would like to apologize for the inconvenience, and also point out that this type of fault rarely occurs in the Omega 2000. Finally, we may say that this was an exceptional mistake and is unlikely to occur again. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

—Replacements for the faulty articles are on their way to you, and you should receive them tomorrow. We are sure that you will be satisfied with them and there will be no repetition of the faults. Thank you for your patience in this matter, and we look forward to hearing from you again.

3.1 AUnscramble the sentences and re-order them to make two different letters of complaint.

1 As a matter of fact, the above invoice was settled on October 10, i.e., exactly five days after our order had been received.

2 As a result, I will have to consider changing my supplier unless you can guarantee that such errors will not happen again in the future.

3 As usual, we paid by bank transfer.

4 Every time, those errors have had an adverse effect on our production
schedules.      

5 Further to our telephone call this morning, I am writing to complain about a number of items which are either missing or faulty in the above order.

6 I am sorry to have to remind you that this is the third time we have had
occasion to complain of such mistakes.

7 Please find enclosed a detailed list of both missing and faulty items.

8 We enclose a copy of a statement from our bank confirming that payment was indeed made.

9 I hope you will take the necessary action to resolve this matter speedily.
10  We would advise you to check your records carefully.

11 With reference to your reminder of December l, it seems to us that an error has been made.

B     Complete this reply to the complaint about delivery in exercise A.

23 May

Dear Mr. Hopkins,

We were very sorry to receive your letter complaining.................. ¹ a damaged and incomplete consignment, Order ref 20G/FF/l03.

Our staff has been............² great pressure recently to deal with an unusually large number of orders, and unfortunately mistakes have occurred.

We have already arranged....... ³ all replacements and missing items to be shipped to you. You will also be pleased to hear that, under the circumstances, we have decided to offer you a 6% discount instead of the 4% formerly agreed.

Please accept our apologies..........⁴ the inconvenience caused, and rest assured that we will do our utmost to ensure that such mistakes do not occur again.........⁵ the future.

We look forward...............⁶ doing business…………⁷you again.

Yours sincerely,

Sales director

Write a reply to the second letter in exercise B.

Use a similar structure as in the letter above: apologise for the mistake, explain how it happened, explain what you have done or intend to do to put the mistake right, apologise again, end on a positive note.

3.2 Silvina Pietragalli recently flew home to Argentina. She had a very unpleasant flight and she wrote to Alpha Airlines to complain about it.

These are the points she mentioned in her letter:

• a group of young people were behaving badly

• they were drinking alcohol and being very noisy

• they were moving around the plane disturbing other passengers

• passengers were unable to relax or sleep

• the cabin crew were unable to deal with the situation

• the situation not only unpleasant but dangerous

• Ms Pietragalli is unlikely to fly with Alpha Airlines again

А The following reply was sent to Ms Pietragalli by Alpha's Customer Relations Manager. Complete the letter with suitable words or phrases from the box..

compensate concerned the difficulties you encountered  

 in the future inconvenience looked into once again  

 sincere apologies to my attention to offer you unfortunately

Alpha Airlines ■ 1758 Center Street ■ Los Angeles ■ CA 90027 ■ USA

December 15

Dear Mrs. Pietragalli:

Thank you for your letter of December 10. I was extremely ..............¹ to learn about the unpleasant experience you had during your flight to Argentina. I would like to apologize on behalf of Alpha Airlines for the annoyance and............² you suffered.                                                                                                              I have.............³ the matter and talked to the staff concerned. They agreed that the young people were noisy and some of them did drink too much. However, they said that these passengers seemed to be having a good time and the staff didn't want to 'spoil their fun'. I showed them your letter and explained how upset you were. They now regret that they did not take action to control the situation. They wish to offer you their..................⁴.

I should add that the flight attendants in question had only recently finished their training and therefore were rather inexperienced...........⁵, they were not used to dealing with this kind of situation. I am sure that they will learn from the incident and know how to deal with such behavior in future.

I hope that the 'bad memories' of the flight will soon disappear, To...............⁶ for the inconvenience caused to you, I would like.........⁷ a gift from our catalogue. Please choose one of the items displayed in the catalogue on pages 6-10. Let us know your selection and we shall send you the gift without delay.

..............⁸, please accept our apologies for................⁹. Thank you very much for bringing this matter....................¹⁰. I very much hope that you will continue to use our airline when you travel.....................¹¹.

Yours sincerely,

Lisa Kaplan

Customer Relations Manager

В    Put the following points in order to show how Lisa Kaplan's letter is organised.

I_I describe what action has been taken

I_I offer some kind of compensation

I_I apologise

I_ I refer to the letter received

I_I show understanding and sympathy 

I _I  apologise again

СWrite a suitable letter to deal with one of these situations. Invent an address for the people and companies concerned. Use some of the expressions from the Useful language box.

1 A customer complains that a machine made by your company has broken down several times.

2 An official of a national Health Authority is angry because deliveries of drugs from your company arrived a month late. The drugs were needed urgently.

3 A company buyer refuses to accept a shipment of personalised pens sent by your company because the company's name has been misspelt on each pen.

4An accounts manager writes to you about errors in a sales invoice you sent to them concerning the sale of 20 tables and chairs. They were billed for $40,800. The correct amount is $4,800.

Useful Language