Writing an Efficient Business Complaint Letter
As the Vice President of Rochester Preferred Travel, you are upset with Premier Promos.
Premier is a catalog company that provides imprinted promotional products for companies. Your travel
service was looking for something special to offer in promoting its cruise ship travel packages. Premier
offered free samples of its promotional merchandise, under its “No Surprise” policy.
You asked yourself, “What can we lose?” and on January 11, you placed a telephone order for a number
of samples. These included:
�An insulated lunch sack
�A portable power strip in a zippered case
�A square-ended barrel bag with fanny pack
�A deluxe canvas attach� case
�Two colors of garment-dyed sweatshirts
WRITING AN EFFICIENT BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTER 2
ROCHESTER PREFERRED TRAVEL
Rochester, NY
May 17, 2016
Ms. Arletta Sandusky
Customer Services, Premier Promos
2445 Bermiss Road, Valdosta, GA 31602
RE: REFUND ON CREDIT CARD BILL CHARGED FOR FREE SAMPLES
Dear Ms. Sandusky,
Rochester Preferred Travel appreciates your interest in working with us, to promote our cruise
ship travel packages (Guffey and Loewy, 2015). However, your company seems to have
erroneously billed Rochester for returned samples and attempts to recover the money have not
been successful.
When Premier Promos offered free promotional merchandise samples under the “No Surprise”
policy, the agreement was that the company would only bill our company if the samples were
accepted. Our company considered this a good offer because it has been used by other companies
such BuildDirect, which offer their products as samples or free trials and require customers to
return them if they do not suit their needs or pay for them if they like them (Booth, 2016).
The samples, which were received on January 11, consisted of:
1 Insulated lunch sack
1 Portable power strip in a zippered case
1 Square-ended barrel bag with fanny pack
1 Deluxe canvas Attaché Case
2 Colors of garment-dyed sweatshirts
WRITING AN EFFICIENT BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTER 3
However, the items did not meet our requirements and were hence returned on January 21. In
February, Rochester’s credit card statement showed that $258.20 had been deducted for the
samples.
Since then, I have called your company twice and Virginia assured me that the error would be
rectified. Our statements for March and April have not reflected this change, hence the need to
bring this to your attention. A perturbing fact in this deal is that Premier asked for our credit card
number, despite the fact that these were free samples. This concern is an example of what
customers are going through, where companies advertise products as free samples but the
customer gets charged for it (Boone and Kurtz, 2014). We therefore hope that this is not a similar
case.
On behalf of Rochester Preferred Travel, I would like to request you to address the matter by
writing to us with a promise to credit the money before the end of May. We are confident that a
company of your caliber will effectively resolve this issue (Guffey and Loewy, 2015)
Yours Sincerely,
………Name……………..
Vice President, Rochester Preferred Travel
WRITING AN EFFICIENT BUSINESS COMPLAINT LETTER 4
References
Boone, L. E., & Kurtz, D. L. (2014). Contemporary Marketing, Update. London: Cengage
Learning.
Guffey, M. E., & Loewy, D. (2015). Business Communication: Process and Product, 8 th Ed.
Hampshire: Cengage Learning
Spring, T. (2012). The Truth about FREE TRIALS. PC World, 30(10), 79-85.
