ELC3203 Adjustments Letters – Structure and Language

Essential parts of letters of complaint and adjustment

Making Complaints Dealing with Complaints

Accepting a Complaint Rejecting a Complaint

Nature of complaint: date, location, invoice, model, personnel

Apology for the error or fault

Regret at dissatisfaction

Accepting the complaint

Rejecting

responsibility for the problem leading to the

complaint

Explanation of complaint: description of problem

extent of damage or defect

A short

explanation of the fault

Investigation

to be made Reasons for the rejection

Description of inconvenience caused: time lost, customers lost,

production delayed

Proposal to settle the difficulty

If a third party is to

blame, direct the plaintiff to seek redress in that

direction

Request for corrective action: refund,

replacement, time-limit

An offer to take goods back, make a replacement, give a

discount

Warning (if necessary): legal action, terminate

contract

A concluding paragraph aiming at retaining the goodwill of the

customer

ELC3203 Adjustments Letters – Structure and Language

The language of adjustment letters Acknowledging receipt of a complaint letter

Thank you for your letter of … regarding / concerning / in connection with …

I refer to your letter of … about / relating to …

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

We appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention. Talking about action

I have checked / looked into / investigated … (present perfect)

Having checked …, it is clear that ... / it seems that … / it would appear that … Talking about causes and effects

This was caused by … / was due to …

Apparently, the issue was the result of … / resulted from …

The cause of / reason for the matter was …

As a result …

This led to …

Consequently … Apologising / reasoning

We must apologise for …

We sincerely apologise for …

Please accept our apologies for …

We assure you that …

In future, we shall endeavour to … Denying responsibility

I regret to inform you that …

I am afraid that …

Unfortunately, I must point out that …

While we can understand (your frustration, etc.), we are unable to …/ we must point out that …

Offering compensation

As a gesture of our regret, we are prepared to …/ we are willing to …/ we would like to …

To show goodwill, we will …