The Encyclopedia of Business Letters, Faxes, and E-mail

8

Business and Consumer Complaints and Requests

According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, 68 percent of customers who leave a business (and never go back) do so because a manager, owner, or employee has treated them with indifference. In addition, 96 percent of dissatisfied customers don’t bother to complain; they simply stop buying. Even worse, the average dissatisfied customer tells eight to 10 people about his or her negative experience with you.

In this chapter, you will find model correspondence for making and handling complaints and requests as both a businessperson and a consumer. In an ideal situation, a person makes a request and you oblige. Everybody’s happy. But in the real world, you simply can’t do what everyone asks ...