Assignment 2: Workplace Correspondence

Assignment Topics-Choose One. Use full block format for letters.

1. Write a complaint letter about one of the following:

1. an error in your utility, mobile phone, credit card, or Internet provider bill

2. discourteous service you received on an airplane, train, or bus

3. frustratingly long waits or prompts to speak to a company's representative

4. a shipment that arrived late and damaged

2. Write a bad-news letter to an appropriate reader about one of the following situations; you may choose to write a good-news letter for the reverse of the bad news:

1. Your company has to discontinue Saturday deliveries because of rising labor and fuel costs.

2. You are the manager of an insurance company writing to tell one of your customers that, because of a reckless driving citation, his or her rates will increase.

3. You have to refuse to send a bonus gift to a customer who sent in an order after the promotion period ended.

4. You have discontinued a model that a business customer wants to reorder.

5. Write a memo addressing a situation you have observed on campus or in your department which needs immediate attention. Address the correspondence to the person in charge of that area. It could be lack of air conditioning in the dorm, problems with class schedules, etc. Try to be clear about the nature of the problem and how to solve it. It will help to write persuasively while you maintain a calm tone.

6. You recently bought a foreign-made product (maybe a camera, computer, cell phone from Japan, China, S. Korea, etc). The product mal-functioned and you want a replacement or a refund of your money. Write a letter to the company, taking into consideration the cultural variables discussed in the text.