Suggested Responses to Additional Exercises and Cases for Chapter 9: Writing Correspondence

Suggested Response to “Evaluating a Generic Business Letter”

Responses will vary depending on the letters students pick. The following sample comments concern the “Apology for Delay of Refund” letter. This letter expresses regret for the delay, states that the company will issue a check at once, thanks the customer for bringing the matter to the writer’s attention, and compliments the customer’s perseverance. However, referring to the computer as a “fellow” detracts from the professional persona of the writer and may offend some readers.

Suggested Response to “Analyzing Audience and Purpose in Sales Letters”

Although responses will vary, ill-conceived, poorly executed, or misguided sales letters usually violate the principles discussed in Chapter 9. These letters, for example, either never attempt to gain the reader’s attention or offend readers by using an inappropriate method, fail to describe the actual product or service, fail to provide evidence to support claims, or fail to tell the reader how to get more information.

Suggested Response to “Evaluating a Claim Letter”

Responses will vary depending on the letters students pick, but a strong response will assess the extent to which the letter writer successfully explains the problem, projects a “you attitude,” and proposes a reasonable adjustment. Students might also note the quality of the writing itself (for example, citing evidence that the writer has, or has not, proofread the claim letter before posting or sending it).

Suggested Response to “Revising Letters”

  1. This order letter does not contain sufficient information. Where are the part numbers and the prices? What is the method of shipment?

  2. The writer should simply visit the school’s website or ask for the school’s catalog, either of which will answer all of his or her questions.

  3. The strategy of this sales letter is effective, but the writing is turgid. The first paragraph, which is intended to attract the reader’s attention, is dull. In the second paragraph, the writer could use a little more evidence to dramatize his point. The third paragraph, the description of the product, is short on specifics. How does the system work?

  4. The salutation “Gentleman” should be replaced with a non-sexist equivalent, such as, “To Whom It May Concern:”.

Suggested Response to “Writing a Sales Letter”

Although responses will vary, successful sales letters will project the “you attitude”; gain the reader’s attention with facts, quotations, or questions; describe the company’s products; convince the reader that claims are accurate; and tell the reader how to find out more by including a web address.

Suggested Response to “Evaluating Your School’s Netiquette Guidelines”

Responses will vary. If your college or university does not provide netiquette guidelines, you might refer students to another university’s site.

Suggested Response to “Food Irradiation at Synergy, Inc.”

In brief, food irradiation is a process in which ionizing radiation is used to eliminate disease-causing bacteria in foods. This case requires students to research a topic with which they are likely to have little prior experience. Students will need to evaluate Internet sources and decide how to best organize their findings. However, this case’s primary focus is applying the concepts from Chapter 9 to writing a memo to a managerial audience to answer a specific question: whether it would be wise to do a formal study on whether the company’s food service should use irradiated food. Successful memos will include the following:

Suggested Response to “Shaping Correspondence To Meet Your Audience’s Needs”

Offering a general-advice handout is certainly a good first step for the Adult Education Center. General advice will likely help writers avoid common correspondence mistakes. However, some types of correspondence have such focused purposes and audiences that specific advice is needed. Advising writers to date a letter of resignation, say when and from what position they are resigning, sign it, and submit it to the appropriate person is useful specific advice. If a writer followed only general letter-writing advice, he or she would likely include supporting details such as the reason for resigning. However, some guides suggest that including too much information in a letter of resignation invites misinterpretation. Handouts with specific advice for business correspondence commonly written by members of the community may be needed.

Suggested Response to “Projecting the ‘You Attitude’ When Corresponding with Customers and Colleagues”

1. Sample memo to a company officer:

TO: Russ Ong, Manager, Customer Service Department

FROM: [your name], Customer Service Department

DATE: December 16, 2016

SUBJECT: Procedures for handling complaints about defects in products

This memo describes a problem we might have with how we handle complaints about defects in products. First, I review the situation, and then I recommend that we investigate this problem further.

Complaints About Defects in Products

About a week ago, the Customer Service Department received a letter from Handee Hardware describing two instances of our UT9 pipe wrench snapping. When I investigated the situation further, I learned that other departments had received complaints about the UT9 handle snapping. Each department is deciding on a case-by-case basis whether a complaint is significant and justifies a follow-up. Consequently, no one is tracking these complaints, and we are unable to quickly notice if one of our products is defective.

Recommendation

To maintain our excellent safety record, I recommend we investigate our procedures for handling complaints about defects in our products. I volunteer to head a committee to look into our procedures and, if necessary, recommend changes.

Action Item

Please let me know whether you would like to discuss this situation further or would like me to head a committee.

2. Sample letter to customers:

United Tools

20 Central Avenue

Dover, TX 76104

December 13, 2016

Mr. Chel Thomas

Handee Hardware, Inc.

17 Main Street

Millersville, AL 61304

Dear Mr. Thomas:

I appreciate your calling our attention to a possible design weakness of our 9” pipe wrench. I am sorry you were dissatisfied with the performance of the tool.

Recently, we discovered a design weakness in the I-beam handle that accounted for the failure of some UT903 handles. After checking our sales records, I learned that we had shipped you three dozen UT903 wrenches in early August of this year. We have redesigned the UT9 wrench, and the new version, the UT904, did not exhibit any problems. In fact, the UT9 line exceeds ANSI standards for this type of tool.

I hope this situation can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. We would like to ship you three dozen UT904 wrenches at no additional charge. This new shipment of wrenches will replace your existing inventory and allow you to exchange the old UT903 wrenches for the new UT904 with customers who recently bought the older model. Please let us know if this is satisfactory.

Because safety is our top priority at United Tools, our engineers would like to inspect the old UT903 wrenches for design flaws. We would appreciate it if you would ship (at our expense) your remaining inventory of UT903 wrenches to our headquarters in Dover, Texas.

Again, we’re sorry and we hope you will continue to be one of our most valued customers.

Sincerely,

[your name]

Customer Service Department