Chapter 4 Instructor Resources

Ch. 4: Additional Case 3

Planning an Apology to a Customer from the People’s Republic of China

Background

You work in the Marketing Department at Zander Instruments, a manufacturer of scientific measurement instruments used in the pharmaceutical, chemical, and semiconductor industries. Your latest product is an x-ray scanner used by airlines to inspect cargo pallets to be sure they contain the cargo listed on the cargo manifest and do not contain illegal drugs or other contraband.

After a negotiation that lasted more than four months, your company signed a contract to supply 15 of these devices, at a total cost of over $2 million, to China Air, on July 1. In the contract, you agreed to provide complete product documentation, including operating and routine-maintenance instructions, in Modern Chinese, the written language used in the People’s Republic of China.

It is July 14. Today you received a letter (Document 4.1) from Haiwang Guo, Director of Operations for China Air, who is unhappy that, although the shipment of scanners arrived on July 1, the Chinese documentation was missing. You call Pablo Hidalgo, the head of the Documentation Department.

“The Chinese documentation was delayed because of translation problems,” Pablo explains. “Several of our graphics with text needed translating, and we didn’t allow for text expansion during translation. We had to revise the layout on several pages—”

“When will the documentation be ready?” you interrupt.

“It will be available by next week.”

You next talk to Paula Tiller, Zander’s President, to discuss the situation. “I can understand why Haiwang is unhappy. The company planned for a big ceremony. Here’s the press release,” Paula says, handing you a sheet of paper (Document 4.2).

After some more discussion, Paula says that she wants you to arrange for the documentation to be hand-delivered to Haiwang Guo, complete with a letter of apology. “I’m counting on you to convey our sincerest apologies and to keep China Air as one of our clients,” she concludes.

Your Assignment

You decide that the first step is to interview a knowledgeable person from the People’s Republic of China to learn what you can about how formal apologies are handled there. A friend of yours, Jun Xiaoyan, in Zander’s Research and Development Department, is from China. You think he might be willing to sit down with you for 15 to 20 minutes. Write a set of questions you would like to ask your friend before apologizing to Haiwang Guo. For each question, write a brief paragraph explaining how the answer to the question might help you complete an appropriate letter of apology to China Air. For example, you might want to know whether the letter should be highly formal in its vocabulary.
Jun Xiaoyan contacts you before your meeting and suggests that you bring along a rough draft of your apology letter. “It will give us something specific to work with,” he says. Based on what you already know about intercultural communication, draft a letter of apology to China Air. Include in the margins any specific questions you want to ask Jun about your letter.