Letter Critique

A customer service manager of an airline company replying to a letter of complain from a passenger who had a bad experience with the airline company’s services on his return flight home. The complaints were that he had the same flight seat number as someone else, he asked for a pillow for his back pain but the stewardess never gave it to him and the meal on board was cold and unappetizing.

(Communication channel: Email)


Subject Line: Your Nov. 29 letter about your experience on flight no.765


Dear Steven,

I am writing with reference to your complaint about having an unpleasant flight on October 27, 2005.

First, I apologize for all problems occurred during your flight. We always make a great effort to ensure that important matters such as this are properly managed.

Due to computer system problems that rarely occur and current employees training program that will finish shortly, we have not succeeded in meeting your expectations.

In light of this, we have decided to look at all your complaints, and avoid these problems to appear next times. I hope also that this will provide a basis for continuing our relationship, because your satisfaction is our success.

To speak with me personally, just call on 12345678.

Sincerely,
Gregory Lim
Customer Services Manager



Analysis

This letter fulfilled the courtesy aspect of effective writing in that the Customer Service Manager apologized immediately to the passenger in the second paragraph, for the inconvenience experienced by the passenger during his return flight. That probably helped to build bridges between the manager and passenger, because the passenger’s grievances were acknowledged. The tone used in the letter was also appropriate. In the third paragraph, the manager mentioned “I hope” and “your satisfaction is our success”. The use of subjunctive mood and positive words would be effective in appeasing the passenger and reassuring him of the quality of services of the airline company.

However, the letter was not very clear in explaining the cause of the hiccups. In the second paragraph, the manager mentioned “current employees training program that will finish shortly” but did not elaborate on how this program had affected the services provided by the airline.

Furthermore, the letter was incoherent and lacked cohesion particularly in the second and third paragraph. In the second paragraph, the manager tried to give an explanation to the complaints expressed by the passenger, but in the subsequent paragraph, he told the passenger that they “have decided to look at all your complaints”. The incoherence was that they would have looked into the complaints already before they could give an explanation to the passenger. Also, the use of “In light of this” as a connector for the two paragraphs was not effective because ‘this’ was not specified and the ideas in the two paragraphs were not linked. To improve the flow of the letter, the order of both sentences could have been reversed. For example, “In light of your complaints, we have investigated the case and found out that the computers were faulty etc…”

The letter also lacked some concreteness in convincing the reader on the airline’s efforts to improve the services. The manager mentioned that the airline company makes great effort to ensure that such important matters are properly managed but went on to justify themselves by saying that the issues were caused by computer system problems that “rarely occurred” and the ongoing employees training program that “will finish shortly”. The justifying phrases used after each explanation suggested that the problems were somewhat unavoidable and passenger’s confidence in the airlines might be affected after reading this. More concrete information could have been given to the passenger. For example, “We have informed the respective departments to carry out system maintenance on the computers and monitor the employees work conduct etc…”

The letter could also be improved in terms of correctness in grammar and sentence structure to make it more formal and professional. For example, the last paragraph could be changed to “Please feel free to contact me at 12345678 should you have further concerns or enquiries.”