Exercise: Formal Letter of Complaint
Read this extract from a letter you have recently sent to a friend:
“.... I forgot to say, don't go to Dino's Bar for your birthday. We
went there last night - the service was awful; the food was cold, and it was
so expensive for such a bad meal! I complained to a member of staff, but
he asked me to put it in writing ...”
Write your letter of complaint to the manager of Dino´s bar
In your letter:
Introduce yourself
Explain the situation
Say what action you would like the company to take
Write at least 150 words
156
Question to think about:
How many paragraphs would you have, and which power graphs
would deal with which issues?
There are several ways to approach this letter, but one suggestion is
to organise this around four content paragraphs, one for each problem and
one at the end for suggestions.
The answer to this question can be planned and organised as follows:
The letter can be divided into 4 paragraphs:
1. Formal “hello” and state general problem, saying why you went to
Dino´s in this case and that you are dissatisfied. State problem 1 (the
service was awful)
2. Detailed explanation of problem 2 (the food was cold)
3. Problem 3: the price was high
4. Conclusion, what you want Dino´s to do- offer some suggestions
for improvement here.
157
A bit more on each paragraph:
OK, so the first paragraph is going to deal with your reason for
writing. In a letter of complaint, the first main content paragraph is used to
outline the problem, say why you went to the business you are
complaining about, and make sure you say that you are dissatisfied.
Then, we could look at the specific details of the problem, using
appropriate adjectives.
Finally, in the last paragraph, we could offer some suggestions or
recommendations to improve the business. You can use language such as:
I must insist that you…
I must urge you to…
158
|
